


Up one way and down the other

by Salchat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Ancients, Angst, Ascension, Awkward Sexual Situations, Bad Sex, Blow Jobs, Consent Issues, Cuddling & Snuggling, Developing Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Good Sex, Hand Jobs, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Internal Conflict, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:47:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26613943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salchat/pseuds/Salchat
Summary: “Sheppard!  John!  You’re not listening to me.  This isn't a life-or-death scenario, it's just death and more death!  There is no cure!  There's no zapping machine!  No magic medicine!  Nothing!”John and Rodney get into trouble off-world, but rescue comes from an unexpected quarter.  And then the trouble really starts...To be updated every Friday!  Now with added art!
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Comments: 78
Kudos: 103





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ‘McShep’ story. I decided to write it because I really love these characters, and because I wanted to challenge myself and, obviously, have fun. Objectives achieved, then, because, while it has been, oh, so much fun to write, it has also been very challenging. Originally I came from the standpoint of humorous awkwardness, but then more serious issues began to intrude and, for a while, I thought the story wouldn’t get written. But Rodney kept chattering on in my mind, with the occasional mumbled interjection from John, and so issues of consent and conflict were hauled out into the open and dealt with. It wasn’t until I was writing the final chapter that I managed to sum up my aims when I wrote to a friend, ‘It has to be plausible, it has to be true to the characters, and it has to mean something.’ I hope I have achieved these three things.
> 
> Thank you to Eos1969 for your invaluable advice, and to my sister for comments and… ‘research’.
> 
> I will update every Friday.

Rodney wished that John hadn’t given in. 

He wished that his friend and team leader had said, “No. Trust the science team. You know, the guys you recruited? There’s nothing there and we’ve got better things to do.” But he hadn’t. John had shrugged, flipped his paperwork the bird and said, “Sure, why not? What harm could it do?” And, because the ruinous Ancient outpost was only a half hour’s walk from the Gate on an uninhabited planet, they’d gone, just the two of them, as if they were heading out for a nice little nature walk. Not that he wished Ronon and Teyla had been with them. Not when he realised what had happened.

“Oh,” said Rodney.

“Oh? As in ‘Oh, look, I’m done and we can go now’?” John turned around in the threshold of the ruinous Ancient facility. “Oh, as in, ‘Oh, yeah, this place is totally useless’? Or oh, as in ‘Uh-oh, we’re gonna die’?” John waved his hands in the air, grinning.

Rodney cleared his throat and swallowed painfully. John’s face fell.

“McKay? You’re worrying me now. What’s up?”

“There’s um… There’s no point worrying.” Rodney ran one hand over the surface of the dusty control panel. There’d been no indication; nothing he could have anticipated.

“Okay, that’s good, then.”

“No.”

“No, what?” John marched into Rodney’s space, his boots scraping on loose rubble.

“No! No, it isn’t good! Really, really, not good! There’s no point worrying because it’s too late and there’s nothing I can do!”

His legs felt detached from his body; they buckled and he sank down, his vision filled with dusty, cracked grey floor, his shocked mind tracing the jagged hairlines in the surface as if searching for escape, where there was none. A face looked into his, a hand gripped each of his shoulders, shaking him slightly. Urgent, muffled words barely penetrated his stupor and he managed to grind out an explanation, John’s face paling at the words, ‘boobytrap’, ‘radiation’ and ‘fatal dose’.

“What type of radiation?”

This inane question awoke Rodney’s sense of outrage. “What type? What does it matter what type? The fatal type! Fatal as in, yes, we’re going to die from this!”

"No. We're not gonna die. C’mon, McKay, you can fix this, you can find a way!"

Rodney found himself hauled to his feet. He licked his dry lips and swayed. “Where are we going?”

“Where? Back to Atlantis, of course!” John Sheppard, man-on-a-mission, towed him out into the burning white light, scanning the horizon as usual, checking for threats, doing all those normal mission things that meant nothing now. “Carson’ll do tests and scans and stuff, you'll come up with some kind of zapping machine to fix us up, then we can move on. To the next life-or-death scenario."

Rodney dug in his heels and pulled away from John’s grip. “Sheppard! John! You’re not listening to me. This isn't a life-or-death scenario, it's just death and more death! There is no cure! There's no zapping machine! No magic medicine! Nothing!”

"How many times have you said that? How many times have we been 'totally screwed' according to you, and then it's 'a thousand to one chance' and then it's, 'oh look, Dr Genius has done it again!'. So quit whining and get on and find a way!"

"You always do that!" said Rodney, an accusing finger pointing at John's angry command-face. "You think I'm just not trying hard enough and you think, 'A little extra pressure and he'll come up with the goods!' Well, not this time, Colonel Drill Sergeant Bully!"

He turned on his heel and marched back into the low, grass-covered bunker. Spots of sunlight dancing before his eyes, he groped blindly for his datapad, snatched it up and marched out again, brandishing it like a weapon.

“See?” He stabbed the screen. “This shows the radiation spike! It’s in Sieverts and we got around eleven!”

“Eleven doesn’t sound like much,” John said, dismissively.

“Four, five at the most and you're dead! Finished! No going back!”

John bent forward and studied the data, closely. Then he straightened up and flung out his arms, as if to demonstrate his manifest good health. “I feel fine!”

“You won’t soon. Nausea, diarrhoea, internal bleeding; it’s not a nice way to go.” Rodney held out his arm. "And skin-burns! Does that look red to you? And my face! My cheeks are itchy! Are they red? Can you see sores opening up?” He thrust his face toward John.

John stepped back. “No! You look fine! I’m fine, you’re fine. We’re both fine!”

"We're not fine!" Rodney roared. He glared at John, his fists clenched at his sides, his chest heaving, his skin hot, his thoughts desperate and his body terminally irradiated.

John swallowed visibly and closed his eyes. “Okay, then. Okay. That's…” He turned and began to walk away.

“Where are you going?”

“Atlantis.”

“They can’t do anything.”

John stopped. Rodney looked at his friend’s back, the rigid shoulders, the tension visible in his neck.

“Maybe not,” he said, without turning round. “But, I'm not giving up hope." He paused. "And if I’m dying, I’d rather die there than here.” He moved off, his footsteps slow but determined.

Rodney said nothing. He glanced back at the silent bunker and then turned and followed his friend.

The narrow trail snaked through shady, low-growing willows, reed-edged pools and damp patches of grassy marsh. The two men trudged in silence. Rodney noticed that John had fallen into his usual habits, his head up and alert, his elbows in their familiar P-90-wielding position. Perhaps he took comfort in routine procedure, even knowing it to be futile; a quick shot from a sniper would be preferable to the pain and anguish that lay ahead.

“Daniel Jackson told me about it once,” said Rodney to John’s back.

“What?”

“Dying from radiation sickness. His body melting away, his mind trapped inside, screaming.”

“Not helping, McKay,” John growled.

Rodney kept his thoughts to himself, but recalled what Dr Jackson had said; the pain, the helplessness, the regrets.

The path led them through a clearing, and Rodney blinked in the light and ran into John.

“Why’ve you stopped? Are you feeling nauseous already?” Rodney put his hand on his stomach. “Me too. It’s starting, isn’t it? Oh, my God, it’s starting!”

“No, shut up, McKay!” John spun round to face him. “Daniel Jackson ascended, didn’t he? And then came back?”

“Yes, but what’s that got to do with us? Or are you suggesting we can achieve the perfect transcendental state while our internal organs deliquesce?”

“No! God! No! I’m just saying, we’re owed a few favours, that’s all!” John pulled out his canteen and drank thirstily, wet his hand and slicked back his hair, which immediately sprang into damp spikes.

“They won’t help us, Sheppard,” said Rodney.

“They might.”

"Okay!" Rodney paced in a circle, flattening the dried yellow stalks. "We'll just head to the nearest payphone and dial five-five-five a-n-c-i-e-n-t, shall we? Or go to Chaya's place and listen to all the reasons why she has to let us die? Or maybe you could Skype Teer? Face it, Sheppard, this is it for us!"

"I'm not giving up! I'm gonna fight it every step of the way!"

"You can't fight this! There is no fight!"

"I don't want to die!"

Rodney saw the fear in his friend's eyes, the reflection of his own. "Neither do I," he said softly.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190544196@N08/50518587348/in/dateposted-public/)

John's head dropped and he rubbed his eyes. His mouth opened and then closed. His gaze slid to one side, then back to Rodney's face. "I think, seeing as, you know, when we get back, we won't -. I mean there'll be lots of -"

"Running and shouting and medics swarming?"

"Yeah, that. Um. So, I guess I should say, uh, thanks."

Rodney waited.

"For um, being you. For being, uh, a friend. It's been an honour and all that stuff."

"Me too. It has. Been an honour, I mean. And friends. Yes. Um…"

Rodney reached forward, tentatively. John raised a hand, gripped his and shook it, his eyes dark and grim, his mouth set into a thin line. Then Rodney found himself lurching forward and flinging both arms round his best friend, holding him tight, despite the P90 between them. His breath hitched as awkward hands patted his back. John's arms tightened around him briefly, then released him. He stepped away.

There seemed nothing else to be said or done.

“Hey, guys.”

Rodney yelped and jumped. John’s P90 jerked up and then slowly lowered. In the shade at the edge of the clearing stood a teenage girl, dressed in jeans, sneakers and a midriff-revealing pink top. She held a cellphone in one hand and a disposable cup in the other, a straw sticking out of the curving plastic lid, through which creamy froth was visible. Rodney blinked.

_“Hedda?”_ said John, incredulously.

“John.” She raised the cup in a toast and slurped through the straw. “Good to see you!”

“You’ve...er...you’ve changed!”

“I’ve been around. Seen a few things. Spent some time on Earth. Picked up some cool gear!” She pointed one toe to admire her branded footwear.

“Nice,” said John. “So, we were wondering -”

“Hang on just a minute,” Rodney interrupted. “How come you’ve just popped out of the ether? And why aren't you all airy-fairy, ascendier-than-thou, ‘embrace your true self’? And what’s with the consumer goods? And the phone! Why does an ascended being need a phone, for heaven’s sake?”

She laughed, and was briefly surrounded by glowing ribbons of white light. “I don’t _need_ anything! But where’s the fun in that? So, I could be all: 'I felt your pain resonate across galaxies', but, you know, I just set up an app.” She waved the phone. The ribbons melted away and she slurped through her straw again, her eyes full of mischief. “So, you guys are in a mess, aren’t you?” She peered at them through narrowed eyes, as if she could see into their souls. “Ew! Nasty!”

“Uh, yeah, we were hoping you could do something about that,” said John. “I know it’s against the rules, but -”

“Yeah, sure.”

“What?”

She shrugged. “I’ll fix you. Why not?”

“Why not?” Rodney burst with outrage. “Why not? Because you lot never do anything to help! Because you’re so bound by your stupid Ancient rulebook that you’d be happy to let millions die, while you just stand round all white and pure and perfect!”

Hedda looked at John, one eyebrow raised.

“He’s right, though, isn’t he?” said John. “You’ll get in trouble if you help us. Like, ‘bound for eternity to do something really boring’ trouble.”

Rodney had never heard a serene Ascended Being snort with laughter before. “Maybe. But the stiffs have got their hands full right now. You heard about Abydos?”

“Anubis destroyed it,” said Rodney.

“That’s the one.” She nodded. “But all the Abydonians got ascended. The whole lot; men, women, children, babies. I mean, nice idea, but those guys are just not into the whole ‘stand by and observe’ thing. It’s a mess!”

“They’re causing trouble?” John smirked.

“And how! They’re into everything! Wars, natural disasters, some kid loses its teddy bear; they just can’t keep their fingers out! Believe me, fixing you two up is nothing!”

John grinned at Rodney. “There you go, McKay! Never say, ‘die an excruciatingly painful death’!”

Rodney smiled weakly, his stomach churning. “It just seems a bit too easy.” He ignored John’s exasperated face-palm. “Whenever we’ve faced death before, it’s been down to us to fix it. Usually me. The ‘fix it or die’ scenario has become a familiar friend. This just feels wrong!”

John rolled his eyes. “Rodney, meet _deus ex machina. Deus ex machina_ , meet Rodney. There! Now you’ve been introduced!” He grimaced. “Could we maybe get on with it? My teeth are starting to itch!” He wiped away the sheen of sweat which had sprung out on his forehead.

Rodney, noting the blistered burns rising on the back of his hands, nodded acquiescence. “Dying wasn’t on my list of things to do today, anyways.”

Hedda clapped her hands brightly, the phone and frothy frappuccino having vanished. “So, what I’m thinking is, rather than go in and fix you guys cell by cell, because, wow, I mean, you're really giving off some bad vibes, there!” (She held up her hands and turned her head away as if to avoid being scorched). “I thought maybe I’d just do you a quick ‘up-and-down’!”

“A what now?” asked John.

“A quick up-and-down. You know, get you all glowy and then back down to your normal corporeal selves.”

“A 'quick up-and-down?'" squeaked Rodney, alarmed at Hedda's casual unconcern. "As in, ascend and then descend? Do we get a short back and sides while you're at it?"

“Ha, yeah, if you like!”

“And there won’t be any time in between so we come back and find all our friends grey and wrinkly or dead a thousand years ago?” asked John.

“Of course not!”

“Sounds cool,” said John. “Go for it!”

Rodney closed his eyes and braced himself. He definitely didn’t want to die and this was the only way; how bad could it be? Pretty bad, his well-fed inner pessimist replied. Bad in all sorts of interdimensional, higher plane, eternal torment ways. He should have insisted on a body-back guarantee! No loss of intellect, no atoms scattered between the planes of reality! He tried to open his mouth, fill his lungs with air and demand some kind of quality assurance, but he found he had no mouth, or lungs and that he was able to observe the air around him in its constituent atoms and molecules and that it was no effort at all to pick out the variety of sub-atomic particles. And, if he really narrowed his attention, he could see -

Hedda's voice sparked with mischief: “Maybe I’ll just tweak you a bit.”

All sensation vanished.

oOo

Rodney's skin was on fire. His back burned with savage intensity, his front itched and crawled with relentless pricks of pain. He groaned, lungs wheezing, and tasted the dirt that his face was mashed into. His nose was blocked and his eyes streamed. It hadn't worked, then. Whatever the kid had done hadn't worked.

There was a muffled grunt next to him, a mumbled curse and a deep-throated yawn. Rodney lay still. What was the point? He might as well just lie here and wait to die. A lump formed in his already swollen throat.

"Crap!" Something prodded his side. "Get up, Mckay! You're burning!"

"Leave me 'lone! Jus' let me die!"

There was a huff of laughter. "You're not dying, Rodney! Not anymore. But you might want to if you stay in the sun much longer! C'mon, move over here!"

Rodney felt John's hand on his shoulder, pushing him. He rolled over onto his back and sat up, painfully, squinting as the light stabbed his eyes.

"Just shuffle over a bit. There. Better?"

The burning heat on his back was gone. The rough grass still prickled and scratched his legs and something was crawling up his - oh. Naked. He risked a glance at John. Naked too.

“She did it!” said John, his gaze aimed at a point somewhere over Rodney's left shoulder. 

"She dumped me face down in the full sun," Rodney grumbled. "She's probably stencilled a maple leaf on my butt." 

"Uh, no." John snickered, his eyes still floating around the clearing. "It didn't look that red - Anyways! We're here! Alive! Not gonna die!"

"And naked."

"Well, yeah."

"Did you hear her say anything? Just as she, you know?" Rodney wiggled his fingers like falling rain.

"Something about tweaking. Do you feel tweaked?"

"I don't know. I'm too busy feeling my sensitive skin responding adversely to all this nature! I'm going to carry out an inventory! Don't look!"

"Gonna check your kit?" John smirked.

"Yes! And you should too in case there are parts missing!"

There was silence and rustling. Rodney kept his eyes down and carried out his inventory; all the relevant parts were in all the correct places, scars still present and allergies too, judging by the itching in his eyes and throat, his blocked nose and the rash on his front, which went all the way down and was going to need a very large tub of hydrocortisone cream. Would it have been too much to ask to be descended into a shady, preferably hypoallergenic spot? Or, better still, straight onto his bed back on Atlantis, followed by a good long sleep, after what had been, by anyone’s standards, a trying day.

Mental faculties were next on the agenda. As an appetizer, he recited pi as far as he could, and then proceeded to the entrée, running his mind through the delights of string theory. Dessert was a frivolous confection, as far as Rodney was concerned: a consideration of the adiabatic theorem in the complex plane and the semiclassical calculation of nonadiabatic transition amplitude. Delicious. And all present and correct.

He looked at John and then rapidly away again, but his eyes were drawn back to his unclothed friend and teammate by the strangely pantomiming movements of his arms. John grasped and turned, flicked and waved, pressed and wiggled imaginary objects, a furrow between his brows, eyes scrunched tight, lower lip gripped between his teeth. Rodney could see the tan lines where his t-shirt sleeves normally ended and the pale stripes on his wrists, one from his watch, one from his black band. A trickle of sweat ran down the side of his face and he swiped it away impatiently and continued his strange, seated dance. At last his hands fell, he gave a hum of satisfaction and opened his eyes.

“What was all that?”

“Pre-flight and start-up for a Black Hawk.”

“All there?”

“Yup. You?”

“Yes, if the small sample I took is representative of the whole,” replied Rodney. “Um… Everything else present and correct?”

John drew his knees up. “Huh. Yeah.” He paused, plucking at the dry grass. “So, that was an interesting near-death experience to add to our collection."

"Hmm." Rodney squirmed in an attempt to shield delicate parts both from the hard ground and from his friend's eyes. He felt the solid earth beneath him, the air moving in and out of his nostrils, filling and emptying his lungs. He didn't feel any different.

John shifted and plucked at his toes. "We’d better get back.”

Rodney looked at the sky. “I don’t think much time has passed. They won’t be sending out search parties just yet.”

“We might have to wait until they do, unless you’ve got your IDC tucked away somewhere."

"Uh, no, no pockets here." Rodney tittered nervously, and hunched over further, his arms folded over his lap.

"Pity Hedda didn't leave our weapons," said John.

"All our kit was irradiated. And I'd rather have clothes! Picture, if you will, our entrance into the Gateroom!"

John tugged one ear and scratched his nose. "Yeah… I'd rather not."

A breeze rustled the boughs of the willow-like shrubs and, in the distance, a bird cried a long trailing fall.

"So…" said Rodney.

"Yeah," said John.

"I'm going to get up now and walk back to the Gate," Rodney announced, deliberately. He shuffled around in place so that his back was to John, then scrambled to his feet and glanced over his shoulder. John was standing at the edge of the clearing, facing toward the narrow way through the trees. Good enough, he thought, and followed.

oOo

Rodney tried not to look at the trail ahead. Sheppard’s back-view was familiar from many a tedious, exhausting hike, but the replacement of layers of black clothing by acres of exposed flesh was embarrassing and made him hyper-aware of his own exposed state. He looked away, but kept tripping and stubbing his toes. He tried to look directly at his own bare feet but glimpses of Sheppard’s pale pink heels intruded regularly into his field of vision, drawing his eyes upward.

At last he allowed his eyes to be drawn, skimmed swiftly over certain areas, and fixed his gaze on the very top of his friend’s head. The jaunty cowlicks waggled back and forth as John walked, catching flecks of dappled sunshine, which found amber lights amongst the black. The unusually pointed tips of his ears were pink; Rodney wondered if they were sunburnt. His own shoulders and back felt hot and tight. The v of dark hair at the nape of John’s neck directed Rodney to study his friend’s shoulders, pale beneath the tanned crescent at the base of his neck. Their muscles flexed as he walked, his arms, bereft of their P90, swinging at his sides, his long fingers slightly curled. His body was loose, relaxed, as if he considered himself safe because the universe had already gone its length today and he’d survived. 

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190544196@N08/50415827167/in/dateposted-public/)

Rodney’s eyes followed the line of John’s spine down to the small of his back and further down to his narrow hips. They jerked up and down alternately as he walked, framing his small, pale buttocks, and Rodney watched the creases beneath form and disappear as each leg moved backward and forward. The effect was mildly hypnotic and he found himself walking in step and imagining what John would see if he were the one trailing in Rodney’s wake. There was a strange fluttering low down in his stomach and he felt his lips curl upward.

“Nearly at the Gate, McKay.”

Jolted out of his reverie, his cheeks flaming, Rodney jumped and squeaked. John spun round in alarm, naked and weaponless but battle-ready, his eyes flicking from one side of the trail to the other. As he turned, his left foot suddenly jerked upward, he cried out and then sat down heavily on the ground, breathing hard through gritted teeth and clutching his foot.

“What happened?” Rodney knelt down beside him, tough stalks of grass prickling his knees.

John grimaced, leaning back slightly, one leg drawn up, the other outstretched. “What do you think happened? I stepped on something!” His knuckles whitened as he squeezed hard and blood welled out from beneath his fingers. “I’m gonna let go. I need you to look and see if there’s anything stuck in there." He glanced up at Rodney, who felt his eyes bulging. "McKay?”

Rodney blinked and shook his head, his mouth dry. “Yes, yes, go ahead.”

John took his hands away and Rodney concentrated on the sole of his foot and the gaping gash that had begun dripping as soon as John had released the pressure.

“I can’t see anything.”

John gripped his foot once more and Rodney got to his feet and checked the trail.

“There!” A jagged shard of metal stuck out of the ground, its surface shining with blood. “It’s about an inch tall.”

“Feels like more,” John gasped.

“Is it stopping?”

“No. Can you take over?”

“Um. Okay.” Rodney knelt down again and replaced John’s blood-smeared fingers with his own, while his friend lay back, supporting himself on his elbows, his eyes closed.

Rodney swallowed and blinked. His heart raced and sweat trickled down and around his jawline. He looked at the trail and the treacherous shard of metal. He looked up at the low-growing, scrubby trees. He looked, through the branches, at the blue, cloudless sky. He didn't look at John, but his mind was imprinted with the image of his teammate, lying before him, the long line of his throat running down to his chest, where clusters of sweat-damp hair surrounded his nipples and petered out over his stomach. And further down, where his drawn-up knee presented a comprehensive view of everything Rodney was trying, and failing miserably, not to think about. He adjusted his grip slightly and John tensed, gripping his lip between his teeth.

“Is it stopping?”

Rodney relaxed his grip briefly, then squeezed again. “Still going.”

He mentally slapped himself around the head. What was wrong with him? His teammate was injured and in pain and all he could think about was, well what, exactly? John’s naked body? And if that was the case as, yes, it most certainly was, he admitted to himself, in precisely what way and for what reason was he so suddenly fascinated? In a purely aesthetic way? Was his genius now knocking at the door of artistic mastery? Was Michelangelo’s statue of David about to be supplanted by a work of greater merit?

No, he realised. Simply, no. And he refused, point-blank, to follow his train of thought any further down that particular track, for now at least. Maybe later, in his room, he could have the mother of all freak-outs, but for now he was locking it away.

He relaxed his grip and regarded the cut edges of flesh with queasy doubt. “It’s stopped.”

“Good.”

“It needs stitches.”

“Yeah.”

“You’ll get dirt in it if you walk on it.” Rodney's unruly mind leapt to the feast of sensation that carrying his friend would bring. No. Anyway, he'd be too heavy. He continued to regard John's foot with concentrated determination.

"McKay?"

He looked up, met John's gaze for a brief, blushing glance and then sprang to his feet and clapped his bloodstained hands. "Okay, right, Gate! Let's get this show on the road!"

"McKay?" John reached up.

"Oh, er, yes." He pulled John up and supported him at arm's length. John wobbled, on one leg, clutching Rodney's arm.

"McKay!"

"Sorry, right, yes, I know!" He clenched his jaw and stepped closer. John's arm slid around his shoulders, hard muscle with the scratch of hair sliding over his skin. And his own arm, between them - what should he do with it? John hopped and leant on him, lurching forward, unbalanced. The arm, with a life of its own, went round John's waist, skin-to-skin across his back and down, so that his hand curled round the soft smoothness just above John's hip.

As if about to infiltrate a hive ship, Rodney lifted his chin and gave a sharp nod; he could do this. "Off we go, then!"

For a few minutes Rodney's mind was busy timing his steps with John's hops, so that their hips didn't bang together, but once they had achieved an awkward rhythm his thoughts were drawn again toward sight and sound and sensation. The puffs of John's breaths, so close to his ear, the scratch of his underarm hair against his shoulder, the warmth and dampness of bare skin all down his right side, the slight tug of discomfort every so often where their awkward gait released the velcro-stick of mingled sweat. John hopped at each of his strides and Rodney's treacherous peripheral vision informed him that the hops were inducing an oscillatory motion in certain pendulous areas. He forced himself to focus straight ahead, to think about the Gate, but that brought him to imagine their cringingly embarrassing entrance into the Gateroom. They'd look ridiculous; naked and bloodstained and naked and dirty and very, very naked. Would John be embarrassed by his appearance? Rodney had seen him strolling, sans clothing, round the locker room, engaged in casual conversation without a care in the world. He'd probably acknowledge the wolf whistles with a casual smirk and a wave and then saunter away, unconcerned, or at least feigning unconcern. Although, no he wouldn't because even John's characteristic nonchalance would be stretched too far by any attempt to saunter on one leg. And, for someone so apparently unselfconscious, he'd been remarkably keen to avoid meeting Rodney's eyes, or Rodney's anything else for that matter.

His eyes slid shiftily in John's direction and met a matching sidelong glance. He traded an uneasy snicker for John's self-conscious grimace and watched John's gaze fix itself resolutely ahead. Rodney decided he would be equally resolute. Then John's tongue flickered over his dry lips and though Rodney wrenched his eyes firmly to the front the damage was done. Their arms around each other, their bodies pressed close, the hitch of John's breath (and other things) at each hop; they all had their disastrously inevitable effect. _Eyes front, don't look down, don't want to see, distract John; he certainly doesn't want to see._ They emerged from the trees, and on a clear rise of land stood the Gate.

"There's the Gate," remarked Rodney, gratefully.

"Yup. There she is."

"Right there, same as ever."

"Good old Gate."

One glance down and he'd know.

"Is that a hawk?"

"Where?"

"Waaaay up there. Really high. You'd better keep an eye on it. In case it attacks."

"Yeah. You too, in case we have to run for it."

They both stared into the empty blue sky until a solitary cloud covered the sun. The air chilled immediately and Rodney became aware, more than ever, of the heated skin pressed to his.

"Still there!" said Rodney. "Don't take your eyes off it!" 

Perhaps cold, hard facts would douse the raging fire. His mind filled with the comfortingly immutable laws of math, but their intrinsic symmetry and beauty just seemed to make things worse, and then he remembered John’s boyish enthusiasm over that magic square puzzle the Brotherhood had left on Dagan, which made him even more hot and flustered. Kavanaugh! He'd think about that miserable excuse for a scientist! And Caldwell, no, Elliott, the bastion of toxic masculinity! Kavanaugh and Elliott making out! The image should have been disturbing to the point of repellence, but Rodney found the figures in his mind morphing into himself and his teammate, locked in a passionate embrace, and really, he was just going to have to run back into the woodland and deal with this in the time-honoured way!

“Are we moving or what?” said John, his gaze still fixed on the sky. “My one useable leg’s getting kinda stiff.”

A strangled squeaking whimper escaped from Rodney’s throat and he lurched forward, off-balance, tripped over a tussock of grass and fell onto the hard-baked ground, pulling John down with him.

“Oof!”

“Ow!”

“Sorry!”

“McKay! What the hell?”

“I just, ow! I just tripped!”

Rodney rubbed his sore hip, which had borne the brunt of the impact. Pain, he thought, for future reference; pain does the trick every time. He picked himself up and helped John to his foot and they made their hoppalong way up the slope to the Gate. It was mounted on a huge stone pedestal. Rodney lowered John to sit in its shade and then sat down himself at a safe distance. His hip was still sore, but it would wear off soon, at which point he wasn't sure if any distance would be safe enough.

"What time was our check-in meant to be?"

"Thirteen hundred, Atlantis time. I'd say that's another hour or so yet."

Rodney huffed. "No water, no food and my hands are covered in your blood." He flicked a fly away irritably.

"Sorry for bleeding on you, McKay. I'll try to keep my blood to myself in future!" John drew up his foot and inspected his injury.

"Don't poke it! You'll get dirt in it!" Rodney turned to watch and then yelped and looked away from the display provided by John's crooked leg.

"What?"

"What what?"

"What d'you make that noise for?"

"What noise? Nothing! I just um, there was something crawling up my arm!"

"Oh." John stretched his leg out again and leant back against the stonework.

The sun was once more covered by a cloud and then several more drifted into the blue, which turned out to be the frontrunners of a cloudbank. Goosebumps crept across Rodney's exposed flesh. He drew his legs up and wrapped his arms around them. A surreptitious flick of his eyes at John revealed that he was crunched into the same posture. If they sat next to each other, as close as they had been before, John's skin would feel warm against his own. He pulled his legs more tightly into his body.

"'S cold," said John.

"Way to state the obvious, Sheppard."

The stones at his back retained the sun's heat. He pressed his feet down into the ground, forcing more of his back in contact with the warmth. Cold splashed on to his arm, then his shoulder, then spots of cold dotted his body steadily. The dried blood on his hands splattered into pale red streaks.

"I suppose you're going to tell me it's raining now," he said.

"I was thinking about it." There was a shiver in John's voice.

Perhaps it was time to set personal concerns aside; and he was sufficiently cold and, no doubt, soon to be miserable, to offset any adverse effects that might be caused by close contact. Rodney shuffled to his left; just a little way, not to seem too eager. He waited. There was a rustling of damp grass. John had reduced the distance further. Thinking about it in terms of basic survival techniques, it made sense to share body heat. And John was injured and had lost blood, so it really was Rodney's duty to snug -. No. Rodney removed the almost-completed word from his thoughts and rephrased the idea. It was his duty to initiate and maintain close contact with his injured teammate. He therefore dutifully initiated, shuffling until his arm touched John's. His upper arm was the only point of contact, however, which was obviously inefficient and ineffective; he released his grip on his legs and slipped the arm around John's shoulders. John reciprocated, as was only sensible, and probably laid down in military survival manuals. In black and white. With diagrams, showing how, in such a position, skin contact could be maintained all the way down the side of the ribs, the flank, the hip and the legs. Of course, if John turned slightly away and Rodney pushed in behind him… The Gate activated.

Above and behind them the event horizon whooshed out into the now-relentless drizzle and then settled into its usual shimmering surface. They waited.

“D’you think Elizabeth’ll send someone through, or give it a couple of hours?”

John shrugged, making Rodney’s left shoulder shrug too. “If it was me I’d send a team. There’s no reason for us to be out of radio contact.”

“No sane reason, no.” Rodney sighed. “We seem to come up with ever more insane reasons.”

“Yeah.”

The event horizon spluttered and failed.

“Are they flapping like chickens or sitting back and finishing their coffee?” speculated Rodney.

“Or saying, ‘let’s send a team with a bunch of spare clothes in case Sheppard and McKay have ended up running around butt naked.”

“We’re not running.”

The rain continued to fall. Rodney, however, felt no pull toward the litany of complaints that would normally have sprung from his lips. His ardour was dampened, certainly, but that was decidedly a good thing for their hopefully imminent return to Atlantis. Gentle pattering surrounded them and the treeline had disappeared in a grey, rainy haze. For a moment time stood still, and although most of his body was wet and cold and stiffening up, the closeness and warmth to his left and around his shoulders was all he needed; peace and simplicity and just this one moment in time. 

The Gate activated once more, the backwash settled, and four shloops announced the presence of a Gate team.

“Okay, Frenchie, Harmon, you stay here, Grogan, you’re with me.” The event horizon fizzled out.

Rodney’s heart sank. Cadman. His head fell forward into his hand. And then the arm disappeared from around his shoulders and the warmth was gone. John pulled himself up against the stonework.

“Lieutenant! Down here!”

Cadman’s face appeared above them, the inevitable broad grin breaking across her face.

“Well,” she said. “I’m not sure I want to ask.”

“Please, don’t,” said Rodney miserably.

She disappeared. “Grogan, and you too Frenchie. Take off your vests and give me your shirts. Yes, I mean it.”

A t-shirt dropped on Rodney’s upturned face. He regarded it, dubiously. It wouldn’t wrap round his waist and it wasn’t long enough to cover everything. Resignedly, he put it on and stood up. John had wrapped his t-shirt sideways round him like a skirt and tied a knot between one sleeve and the hem. It wasn’t a bad look on him. Rodney stretched the front of his t-shirt down as far as it would go, which made the back ride up. He was sure it was a very bad look.

“You good to go?” Cadman called down.

“Yeah,” John replied.

“Yeah, just great,” muttered Rodney. He moved alongside John and they resumed their halting progress, Rodney tugging one-handed at the fabric of his shirt.

“Dial ‘er up, Harmon!”

They met the team at the base of the platform as the event horizon exploded once more above them.

“You’re injured, sir!”

“Yeah, going without boots? I don’t recommend it.”

Cadman spoke into her radio. “Sheppard and McKay both retrieved, Ma’am.” She paused. “Uh, yeah, minor injury only.” She smirked. “Copy that. Cadman out.” She turned to the two bedraggled men. “There’ll be a med team ready,” she said. “Shall we?”

“You’re loving this, aren’t you?” snapped Rodney, runnels of water streaking down his face. “I bet you can’t wait to see everyone laughing at me!”

She looked at him and shook her head. “I didn’t have to order my men to give up their shirts, Rodney. What else am I supposed to do?”

“You could tell them to clear the Gateroom! Or turn all the lights off! Or both!”

“Yeah, come on, you’re not getting any dryer standing there having a hissy fit.”

“Hissy-!”

“McKay!” John halted the perfectly justified tirade. “Can we just get this over with?"

“Yes, well, I’m sure you’ll pull the whole thing off with your usual insouciant charm! So, let’s just go ahead and give the whole of Atlantis a good laugh at my expense!”

John sighed heavily. "Cadman, gimme your knife."

"Sir?"

"Hand it over!" John released his hold on Rodney and sank down to the stone steps. "Take the shirt off, Rodney."

"What, in front of everyone?"

"I'm sure they'll turn their backs!" John glared at the team, who arranged themselves facing outward.

Rodney pulled the damp shirt over his head and gave it to John, who efficiently sliced down one side and both shoulders. "There you go, made to measure."

"Thanks," said Rodney, tying the halves of the cut sleeve to one side of his waist.

They mounted the shallow stone steps, Rodney pausing at each one to wait for John’s hops. Then the event horizon was before them and he wished he’d found a way of sending the wormhole straight to his room. Or, even better, straight into a hot shower. He held the flapping sides of his improvised apparel together and stepped through, John hopping at his side.

Rodney emerged from the rippling surface to the fanfare of a wet splat and a strangled curse.

"Crap!" John lunged forward, jerking him off balance. "Stupid piece of-" He flailed helplessly toward the tangle of his shirt, wrapped around his ankles.

"Sheppard!" Rodney felt himself falling and stepped forward.

"McKay!" John's arm slid from around his neck and he swung round Rodney's body, a hand catching in his skirt.

"Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!" The fabric was yanked from Rodney's grasp, pulled down over his hips and he lurched, tripped over John's tumbling form and fell, face down and naked on the Gateroom floor.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rodney analyses his feelings, John suppresses his, Teyla tries to help and Ronon has a good laugh at their expense.

"Good heavens!" Carson's voice.

The event horizon collapsed. There was silence. Rodney looked up: Carson and his med team, the Gateroom security detail, Elizabeth, Ronon, Teyla. It could have been worse. Oh, it was worse. Zelenka waved from the Control Level, a gaggle of interested faces pressing in behind him. Ronon grinned openly, Teyla's lips twitched, Elizabeth tried to hide an appreciative smirk behind her hand.

Carson, the only one with a shred of decency, twitched the blanket hastily off the waiting gurney and swirled it round to cover both of them. Then he turned and clapped his hands at the assembled horde as if shooing away a bunch of unruly street urchins.

"Get away with the lot of you, back to your duties! I have an injured man to attend to here!" He gestured to the blanket, which covered the whole entanglement other than Rodney's head and John's bloodstained foot.

Carson continued to glare for a moment until the shuffling and murmuring assembly, smirking senior staff included, dispersed. 

The blanket wriggled.

"Are you in there, Colonel?" asked Carson.

"No," said the blanket.

Carson squatted down and lifted the corner. "Everyone's gone now." He glanced at John's foot. "Looks like you've got a nasty gash, there. Let's get you up on the gurney, shall we?"

"No!" squeaked Rodney. "Communal blanket, here!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Rodney! Here, put this on!" He shrugged himself out of his white coat and Rodney snatched it, put it on, hastily buttoned it up and pulled the collar closed, grasping it firmly in his fist.

"Thank you, Carson!" he said, tightly. "You may be the only one on Atlantis who gets a hot shower for the foreseeable very long time indeed!"

John's tousled head poked out from beneath the blanket. "Hey! Don't include me in your evil genius revenge!"

"You're exempt, of course, as a fellow victim. What happened to your sarong, by the way?"

John turned a murderous shade of red. "The knot came undone."

Rodney rolled his eyes and chuffed with disgust. "Typical! I'm insisting on clothes next time! I bet Miss Teen-Ancient was watching! In fact," he said, his eyes narrowing dangerously, "I bet she was responsible for the whole fabric structural failure disaster!"

Carson, who was helping a blanket-wrapped John onto the gurney, said, "Who's that then, Rodney? What happened to you two out there?"

They began the trek to the infirmary, and, as Rodney recited their tale of near death and brief sojourn on a higher plane, he could see, in Carson's zealous eyes, the battery of tests to which they were to be subjected, growing exponentially.

oOo

"Maybe I'll just tweak you a bit."

Hedda's words skittered around in Rodney's thoughts, as he drifted at the edge of sleep, grateful for the low lighting and peace after Carson's frenzy of testing. He knew what she'd done, to him at least; it didn't take a genius to work it out, and since he was a genius, he was well ahead of the game. He wasn't sure how he felt about it, though. Had his opinion been sought on the matter of developing a raging crush on his longtime friend and teammate, the answer would have been a resounding 'no'. And really, 'tweaking' without consent just wasn't ethical. Obviously he was grateful to be alive; if she hadn’t stepped in, yes, he’d still be in the infirmary, but he’d be surrounded by futilely bleeping monitors and people coming to say their goodbyes and Carson would be struggling to retain his professional demeanour in the face of guilt and sorrow. Rodney’s thoughts strayed to the solemnities and speeches as his casket was sent back through the Gate, the dignity and the ceremony with which the greatest ever scientist-

His thoughts broke off as he pictured the other casket; John’s casket. He looked at John, in the bed next to him, asleep on his side, facing Rodney; not cold and still in what would have had to be a lead-lined box, but here, alive, his breath puffing reassuringly. He'd flung back the blankets and Rodney stared at the shadowy v-neck of his white scrub top, his tanned arms, one crooked beneath his head, the other lying along his side. A warm glow lit up in Rodney’s stomach, dispelling the shivering ‘what-ifs’ of picturing his own, and John’s funeral. But a spark of anger flared alongside; what right had Hedda to change his essential manliness into whatever mushiness this was? And why had she done it? Purely for the confusion it would cause? Was she watching now? His eyes skated round the dimly-lit room, but she wouldn’t show even the tip of a glowy finger if she didn’t want to be seen.

Rodney looked again at John, who had rolled onto his back, his unshaven jaw relaxed, his snores working their way gradually toward the farm animal end of the spectrum. He was very definitely a man. And Rodney had never been attracted to men. He’d been doing just fine with the opposite sex, thank you very much Miss Meddling Mystic, he thought, his mind helpfully glossing over various failed relationships. He wondered whether he was now attracted to men in general, making him gay, or bi, or whatever. He certainly hadn’t had any cravings to see Carson out of uniform during all the mother-henning, post-ascension fuss-potting, and usually, muscly, hairy, sweaty men with their sweaty man-smell would be a complete turn-off. But back on that planet, his arm around his friend, the hairy, muscly sweatiness hadn’t been a problem. 

Asleep and dimly lit, John's face was softened and open, with no defensive tightening of his jaw or lowering of frowning brows. Had she changed John too? Had she, for John, pushed the depth of their long friendship further, into lust or love or whatever it was Rodney was feeling? The spark of anger erupted again, this time on John’s behalf. He didn’t need changing. He was John Sheppard, before whom females dissolved into puddles of desire. And who, for some reason, seemed to avoid long-term relationships. Which must be because he didn’t want one and had been quite happy as he was. But perhaps Hedda had only 'tweaked' one of them, anyway, leaving Rodney longing for a connection that, not only could John never feel, but that he would recoil from and then turn away from their friendship completely?

Rodney twisted and turned restlessly, tangling the blankets around his feet. John Sheppard ran in his veins like a batch of too-strong coffee, his heart pounding with the memories of naked skin, his ears singing with suppressed desire. What would John do, if Rodney gave in to the impulse dictated by his craving arms and his twitching, tingling fingers? What would he do if Rodney slid out from beneath his blankets and padded, barefoot, across the cool floor to run one finger down the side of John's face and across his soft lower lip? If he brushed lightly through that tousled hair, laid his hand on the cotton clad shoulder and then stroked all the way down the sleeping strength of that wiry, muscled arm, skimmed fleetingly over the prominent wrist bones and then gently touched each of those long fingers, one by one?

And if he leant down and brushed back the unruly hair to press his lips against John's forehead, what then? Or, if, daring all, he leant lower and kissed his friend directly on his expressive mouth? Rodney blushed in the darkness, desire and embarrassment, pleasure and guilt churning in his gut and shivering across his skin.

"Are you alright, Rodney?"

Rodney twitched and looked up.

"Carson!"

The doctor smiled. "You should be asleep too, you know. Not still thinking about your grand entrance are you?"

Rodney pulled a hand slowly down his face, grimacing. "I'll never live that down."

"Oh, I don't think you need to," said Carson. "It's just one more story to add to the legend of Sheppard and McKay."

"Legend?"

"Yes! The scrapes you two have got into, and got out of, usually saving the rest of us while you're at it."

"Well, yes, I suppose we are rather heroic, upon occasion."

"Aye, Rodney, heroes! Mind you, we're all bloody heroes living in this place. Let me know if you need anything." He retreated into his office.

Rodney closed his eyes. There was a creak, a rustle of starched sheets and a hissing whisper.

"Hey, McKay!"

Should he respond?

"McKay!"

"What?" He opened his eyes. John was leaning up on one elbow, watching him.

"Uh, nothing. Just wanted to see if you were awake."

Rodney glared through the darkness.

John flopped back on his pillows. He plucked at his blankets, his eyes following the movements of his fingers. "So, er, what she said? Hedda?"

"What, the tweaking?"

"Uh, yeah…"

"What about it?"

"Well," John glanced at him briefly, then back down at his blankets. "Have you noticed anything, er, different?"

Rodney took a breath, then snatched the words back before they could spill out. Instead, he asked, "Why, have you?"

The blanket-plucking continued and, even in the low light, Rodney could see lip-chewing was in progress.

"No?" It sounded like a question, and the look that John shot Rodney from beneath his drooping forelock was highly reminiscent of a little boy full of guilt for some misdeed.

"Me neither," said Rodney, watching his friend closely.

The lip-chewing paused and the eyes fell. "Oh. Okay, then. Goodnight, Rodney." He shuffled further down the bed and turned over. But the hand lying along the curve of his hip still plucked restlessly at the cotton blanket.

"Goodnight, John."

oOo

Rodney was glad when Carson signed them both off duty the following day, pending any after-effects from being irradiated, made non-corporeal, returned to corporealism and then getting wet and cold. He felt fine, but wanted to deploy his intellect on the exploration of his current state, rather than the usual mix of mini-crises, breakages and interrupted research that was his daily bread-and-butter when he wasn’t dealing with major crises of potentially solar-system shattering proportions.

Following an awkward debrief in which Elizabeth sat between their beds, her face a strange mix of concern, embarrassment and amusement, John had disappeared as fast as he could, on the crutches that Carson had forced him to use. He’d barely looked at Rodney and had been taciturn and remote with Carson, provoking a narrow-eyed stare of scan and test-filled intent. John had claimed he just hadn’t slept well and had been grudgingly allowed to go. Rodney lingered for a little while, nibbling his toast and deciding on his approach to the problem, until he was shooed out by the nurses who wanted their infirmary clean and patient-free.

He returned to his quarters, via the Mess Hall, where he picked up more toast for his ongoing nourishment. Who knew how many calories being ascended and descended used up? Enough to warrant a decent breakfast, that was for sure. He settled down at his desk, toast within easy reach on one side of his laptop, coffee on the other. 

He made a spreadsheet. First he listed all of the girls and women that he had ever had a passing attraction to, then in the next several columns, he set down the marks out of ten that he had assigned them prior to his ascension, grading them on attributes such as hair, smile, intellect and body (top, middle and lower). This was really just a transcription of a mental spreadsheet that he’d been compiling for years, so he had very little trouble remembering any of the scores.

“...and ten for short, blonde hair,” he said, absently, completing Samantha Carter’s scores. 

He inserted more columns for comparative, post-ascension grades and then sat back in his chair, pondering. He scanned the list of names, clearly picturing in his mind faces and figures, together with the unfortunate memories of more or less adamant rejection in a number of cases. Being honest with himself, most of them had rejected him; although the thought didn't seem to bother him as it usually did. He hovered the cursor over first one name and then another, considering whether he would still assign Jenny Fremantle an eight for her shiny, bouncy red hair or Imelda Stitt a nine for her not shiny, but very bouncy assets. He slurped some of his coffee and chewed energetically at a piece of cold, rubbery toast. He let the parade of women wander through his head, unfettered, and largely unnoticed. He found himself wondering what John was doing. Was he, too, trying to assess his current state of sexual orientation?

“This is hopeless!”

Abandoning his attempt to quantify his apparently now neutral feelings on females past and present, Rodney flexed his fingers and set out another spreadsheet, listing the men of his current acquaintance. Considering this suddenly interesting group, he decided that the broad shoulders and narrow hips of some of the Marines were somewhat attractive, and even one or two of the scientists, whose stupidity he forced himself to ignore temporarily, had a certain pallid other-worldly appeal. Major Lorne was a obviously a handsome man and Rodney had always recognised Ronon's innate sex appeal. But where before male attractiveness had been something to be jealous of and threatened by, now it gave him a mild frisson of pleasure. He spent an enjoyable twenty minutes assigning values to their various charms and then ranked them in order of ‘Would I?’ discovering that, in some cases, he certainly would; in theory, at least, if his thoughts didn't continually ping back to John Sheppard as if attached to him by elastic.

Then he realised he hadn’t included Sheppard on the list. He thought about his friend and where he and his casual slouchiness and lazy, lop-sided smile would fit in his rankings. Abruptly, he closed the suddenly offensive spreadsheet without saving it, shut down his laptop and stared at the blank screen. John was… well, he was John. You couldn’t classify him or rank him, or assign marks to his lean, long-limbed bendiness, his springy hair, or his smile that ranged from sheepish to shy to just plain silly. You couldn’t put a number on eyes that changed colour according to his mood or surroundings. You couldn’t quantify the effect of his childlike enthusiasm, or his rigorous approach to superhero fandom, or his remarkably fine mathematical mind, and that was before you even got started on his bravery to the point of foolhardiness, his instinct to protect at the cost of his own life, his sheer willingness to put himself in harm’s way for the sake of others. There was a lump in Rodney’s throat and a prickling at the corners of his eyes.

“Oh, God!” He leapt up, ran into the bathroom and studied himself in the mirror. He looked normal. A little pasty. Then he thought about John; his smile, his hair, his alluring, indefinable Sheppardiness. A part of Rodney’s brain tried to observe dispassionately, as his face took on a melty look. His eyes became extra blue, his mouth wobbled dreamily and his cheeks became tinged with a delicate blush. He groaned. “This is bad. This is really bad. So, so, bad.”

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190544196@N08/50443211548/in/dateposted-public/)

He dragged his feet out of the bathroom, snatched up an even colder, even more rubbery piece of toast and shoved it into his mouth. He flopped down onto the bed, chewing mechanically, swallowed the toast down with a gulp of cold coffee and then cleared his throat.

“Besotted,” he said. “Smitten. Infatuated.” He sighed. “This isn’t just plain lust. I’m in love with John Sheppard.”

oOo

It was like being back at school, Rodney thought, regarding his lunch tray sourly. The nudges, the winks, the laughter as soon as his back was turned. He half expected to feel the legs of his chair ‘accidentally’ kicked and the tickle of squashed-up bits of bread roll landing in his hair. Obviously having saved their collective asses on numerous occasions and achieved ‘legendary’ status didn’t preclude being a general object of ridicule to the masses. And his secret crush (he was avoiding the l-word for now) just added to the whole high-school theme, although back then he’d leaned toward blondes with bosoms rather than messy-haired colonels.

"Rodney!" Teyla set her tray next to his, smiling as she sat down.

Ronon dumped his weighty selection of lunch items opposite and flung himself into a chair, knocking the table and spilling Rodney's juice. "McKay," he acknowledged, with no attempt to hide his smirk.

"Let's get it over with, then," said Rodney, mopping up his juice with a paper napkin. He flicked a hand toward himself, encouragingly. "Come on, then! Laugh! Jeer! Comment unfavourably on my anatomy!"

"Rodney, Ronon would not -"

"Yeah, I would!" He threw back his head and laughed with huge enjoyment, slapping the table so that more of Rodney's juice leapt from his cup. "You both come through the Gate in skirts! Then Sheppard's falls down! Then he pulls yours down!"

"Thank you for that round-up of events, Conan," said Rodney bitterly. "I was in danger of drawing a veil over the whole humiliating episode."

"It will soon be forgotten I am sure, Rodney." Teyla placed a comforting hand on his arm.

"Ha, yeah, right!" Ronon ignored Teyla's glare and began dipping handfuls of fries in his gravy and stuffing them into his mouth.

"Have you seen John today, Rodney?" asked Teyla.

"Not since the infirmary." Rodney poked at the surface of his dessert half-heartedly. The sauce had formed a thick skin, he noted, enviously. “Elizabeth came to debrief us.”

"Bet that was awkward," said Ronon.

"Even you would have struggled to match the conciseness of our delivery, Ronon. 'Fatal dose of radiation, intervention by Ascended Ancient, home in time for tea and excruciating embarrassment!'"

"It must have been a traumatic experience, Rodney."

"It was! We thought we were going to die! We said our farewells and everything!"

“And then you were Ascended,” said Teyla.

“Yes, but if you’re imagining some deeply moving, spiritual experience, forget it.” Rodney pushed the skin on his dessert to one side and dug his spoon into the sponge beneath. “It was more in the nature of ‘wham, bam, thank you Ma’am.’ Except she didn’t even stay for the thank you. What are you smirking about?” Rodney followed Ronon’s gaze.

John was in the lunch line, and Rodney's stomach gave a lurch that had nothing to do with the large portion of meatloaf he'd just consumed. His groin tingled, his hands itched to touch, his arms ached to hold and his mouth began watering. The bandaged, crutch-supported Colonel was attracting some few sympathetic murmurs and looks from his many admirers and there was another lurch in Rodney’s stomach, which he recognised as pure, seething jealousy. How dare anyone else admire John. John belonged to him.

“Rodney?”

“Yes? What?”

Teyla’s face was schooled into non-judgemental neutrality which meant someone was going to pay for something. “Is there anything wrong between you and John?”

“No! Why?”

Ronon swallowed a large mouthful of fries. “You look like you want to kick his ass.”

“No I don’t! I don’t want to do anything to his ass!” Flames erupted beneath Rodney’s skin. “I wasn’t thinking about his ass at all! Why would I? Or anyone’s ass for that matter! What’s all this talk about asses anyway? It’s just - just unnecessary! There’s no need!”

Ronon stared, blank-faced, his mouth halted mid-chew. He looked at Teyla, then shrugged slightly and continued to eat. “Whatever.”

John had tucked a plastic-bound sandwich beneath one arm and looked set to head out of the mess hall. Teyla waved and beckoned and he crutched over to them.

“John, sit! Do you need any help? The salad is very good today.”

“Uh, no, thanks, Teyla. I think I’m gonna head back to my quarters.”

Rodney kept his head down and concentrated on his dessert.

“Is your injury painful? I expect Carson has told you to elevate it.”

“Yeah.” There was a pause and a squeak of rubber tips against the smooth floor. “So. Better do that, then.”

Rodney risked a glance upward. John’s eyes immediately jerked away to stare at his feet.

“See you later, guys.” He crutched away.

“Rodney!” Teyla’s voice was sharp.

“Yes!” 

“Does John blame you for what happened yesterday?”

“No! Of course not! It was an accident!”

She stared at him, as if he were a subject for meditation. “There have been issues of trust between you before.”

“That was years ago!” Rodney protested.

Ronon snorted round his meatloaf. “Hey, maybe yesterday they compared- “

“Ronon.”

“-and Rodney’s was bigger!”

“Ronon!” The spots of angry colour in Teyla’s cheeks promised bantos-delivered pain for the ex-runner in his very near future.

“Look, there’s nothing wrong! Everything’s fine! Apart from the totally understandable desire to forget yesterday’s excruciating embarrassment!”

Teyla returned to her salad, projecting scepticism through the precise use of her cutlery. “Rodney, I have known both you and John a long time. I can tell that you are hiding something,” she said simply. “You must find him and clear the air between you.” She nodded once in closure of her verdict.

Clear the air, thought Rodney, scraping the last of the dessert from his bowl. If he gave in to his impulses, there wouldn’t be any air between them to clear, their two bodies pressed as close as a bimetallic strip, Rodney’s copper curving around John’s steel in the rising heat. He licked the spoon, then carried on scraping, even though the bowl was clean. If he gave in to his impulses, John might turn away and try to put as much space between them as possible. Perhaps that was what he was already doing; he’d realised that Rodney had non-platonic feelings for him and was running away. On the other hand, he'd react in exactly the same way if he had non-platonic feelings on his own account. Rodney tried to look at the situation from John's emotionally straight-jacketed point of view; he had more to risk than Rodney by admitting any attraction to a male friend, thanks to the whole ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ nonsense. John would run from the whole situation either way, which meant that if there was any air-clearing to be done, it would be up to Rodney to make the first move. And then? If John now felt the same way, could he, could they, follow the drive of their raging hormones? Should they? Wasn’t it like they’d been drugged and wouldn’t be acting of their own free will? But if it was a drug, or rather a state that was now a part of them, a true part of what amounted to new identities, what then?

“McKay!” Ronon kicked him under the table.

“What was that for?”

“Bowl’s empty! Leave it alone!”

Teyla reached out and stilled his hand, which was still rhythmically scraping round the bowl. “Rodney,” she said, softly. “Go and find him.”

oOo

Subtlety, thy name is not John Sheppard, thought Rodney.

A wander past John’s room, LSD in hand, revealed no life signs in his quarters. So, where had he gone to ground? On any normal city-based day, the Colonel would be popping up all over the place, usually getting in Rodney’s way. He would bound between weapons training, briefings and debriefings, beating up Marines and being beaten in his turn by Ronon and Teyla, with scattered short diversions to his office to pretend to do his paperwork, and longer diversions to Rodney’s lab to play with the Ancient gadgets and lean against any handy surface in a manner characteristic to achingly cool military commanders. Today, apart from his brief, furtive appearance in the mess hall, he was conspicuous by his absence and lack of popping up. And he was proving particularly elusive for a man who'd been given 'rest and elevate' orders for his injured foot; a man on crutches shouldn't be able to get that far.

Having barked into his ear-piece to ascertain that John was not lurking in any of his usual haunts, Rodney returned to mission-standard tactics to track down his quarry. He’d had no luck with the LSD, so, the sub-cue tracker it was, then. Accessing the city-wide map on his laptop, Rodney requested John’s whereabouts and was, for a moment, puzzled. The Colonel-indicating blip was not in immediate evidence. Scanning the periphery of the city, however, his incisive gaze following all the twists and turns of the coves and bays of the far reaches, he spotted the blip out at the edge of the north pier. He zoomed in. And sighed, shaking his head and glancing toward his bedroom window at the rain-lashed glass and the greyly obscured towers and spires of the city centre. The outlying areas had disappeared in ragged wisps of low cloud. He turned back to the screen. John’s tiny reading occupied a nastily exposed platform.

“Oh, God, Sheppard. Why do you have to make things so hard?” Rodney rubbed his eyes and then slammed the laptop shut. He sprang to his feet and zoomed toward the transporter, did a quick one hundred and eighty degree turn back to his quarters, grabbed a jacket, hesitated, grabbed his spare jacket and zoomed out again. 

The transporter took him to a small, stubby tower, its entrance facing back toward the centre, which had disappeared completely in the lowering grey cloud. Rodney put the spare jacket over his head and slipped out into the howling gale, icy needles of rain and seaspray blasting from the end of the pier soaking his front almost straight away. He scuttled between the meagre patches of shelter provided by scattered buildings and equipment housing until he could see a hunched figure, black against the heaving grey sea.

“Sheppard!” The wind blew his voice away and he filled his lungs and yelled. “Sheppard!”

John’s head turned, as he awkwardly braced himself against the gale on his crutches. “Go away, Rodney.”

Rain stung Rodney’s eyes and he could taste the bitter salt spray of the whipped up waves. John’s hair was plastered to his head and he hadn’t brought a jacket, as Rodney had suspected.

“Here!” He thrust out his spare. “Put this on!”

“Why?” John growled. “’m already wet.”

“Just, put it on!” Rodney forcibly pulled John’s arm out of one crutch and bunched up the sleeve to slip it over his arm. The arm jerked back.

“Alright! Give it here.” He snatched the jacket, thrust his crutches at Rodney and pulled it on over his sodden shirt, leaning on Rodney’s shoulder until he could take hold of his crutches again. He turned back toward the sea.

“You can go now.”

“No!” Rodney had to shout to make himself heard over the gale, one side of his face becoming numb in the freezing blast from seaward. John’s gaze remained fixed on the waves, his mouth white with cold and tension, his eyes nearly closed against the gale. Surely he wasn’t just running away from his friend and teammate’s unwanted attentions? He was running away from himself; from his own feelings. “I’m not leaving you out here to do your guilty, brooding, tortured soul act!” Rodney’s pointing finger jabbed toward John’s head. “I know what Hedda did to me and I think she did it to you too!”

“She saved our lives.”

“No. She didn’t.”

“What?”

“She didn’t save our lives. She gave us new lives. There’s a difference!”

John shook his head, impatiently. “I don’t know what you’re going on about, McKay,” he growled.

“I think you do.”

John’s nostrils flared and his chest rose and fell with a deep breath. And then another. He didn’t speak.

Rodney also took a deep breath, and then made good use of it. “She changed us! Both of us! She made us attracted to each other! Admit it, Sheppard!” John stayed a frozen statue, his body shaken by the force of the gale. Rodney jabbed his shoulder. “Admit it! There’s nobody around! Just say it!”

“Okay!”

“Okay, what?”

“Okay, yeah,” John snarled. He turned toward Rodney, his wet hair whipping across his face. “Yes, she changed us. Me. She made us something we’re not.”

“And you’re angry.”

John’s hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. “She shouldn’t have messed with our heads.”

“No. She shouldn’t. But -”

“Why don’t you just leave me the hell alone, McKay?”

“No! Because that’s not what best friends do. I don’t think. I haven’t had that many, so I’m not sure, but you know, I’m pretty sure that I’m not going to leave you out here blaming yourself for this and getting hypothermia!”

“I’m not blaming myself.”

“No? Why the Heathcliff act then? And why have you been avoiding me?”

John glared beneath lowering black brows, underlining the romantic hero vibe. “I thought if I didn’t see you it might wear off.”

“Wear off?” Rodney laughed, his mouth filling with rainwater. “I don’t think gayness wears off, Sheppard!”

“I’m not gay, and how do you know it won’t wear off? What Hedda did might not be permanent.”

A sinking hollowness appeared in the pit of Rodney’s stomach. “Look, this is stupid!” He waved his arms at the storm-ridden surroundings. “Let’s discuss this somewhere not in the middle of a hurricane. Yes? Sheppard?”

John folded his arms across his chest, a mulish expression on his pale face.

“John. We have to talk about this.”

His friend scowled, shrugged and turned too quickly. His crutches skidded on the slick decking, forcing his weight onto his injured foot. “God dammit to hell!”

Rodney pushed his shoulder beneath John’s, taking his weight as he righted the crutches. He hovered closely by his friend’s side as they made their wind-pushed way back to the transporter and pressed his body close to Sheppard’s more than once when gusts threatened to tumble them across the open length of the pier. He was chilled to the bone by the time they reached the tower and the silence and warmth as the transporter door slid closed behind them was a blessed relief.

Water ran down Rodney’s nose. He sniffed and shivered. John leant against the wall with his eyes closed. His skin was white and bloodless.

“How long were you out there?” Rodney’s teeth chattered.

John mumbled unintelligibly.

“Too long,” said Rodney.

The doors slid open and he towed his friend down the corridor, slapped at the controls of his quarters and drew John inside. There was no audible protest and Rodney doubted he even knew where he was. He supported John into the bathroom, propped him against the wall and waved a hand under the shower, which immediately began to pour down a hot, steaming deluge. Rodney kicked off his waterlogged boots and pulled John’s off, lifting his feet one at a time, grateful for the ridiculous untied laces. He hesitated, shivering even in the build up of heat in the small room. John was still shuddering with cold.

“Let’s just get in,” he said. He pulled John’s crutches out of his numb hands and thrust them out into the bedroom, then manhandled his friend into the small shower cubicle, leaning him against the tiled wall. Rodney got in too and the hot water soaked through his clothes, driving out the freezing cold rain and salty spray. His shoulder was pressed into John’s chest and he felt his friend shivering, his breaths coming in shallow jerks. Rodney closed his eyes, allowing the heat to penetrate through his skin and into his bones. His own shivering gradually stopped and his aching muscles relaxed. Trying not to jab John with his elbows, he began to peel off his saturated clothes. They dragged heavily on his shoulders and limbs and he let them fall to the floor of the shower cubicle.

“Huh? Rodney? What?” John’s unfocussed eyes watched him.

“Oh, you’re rejoining me, are you? Thawed out a bit?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess.”

“Articulate as ever.”

John’s eyes widened as Rodney flung his t-shirt to the floor of the cubicle and stripped off his underwear and pants. “Um... “

“Yes, yes, I know, more nakedness! Don’t worry, I’ll grab a towel to spare your blushes!” He stepped out and flung a towel round his waist and tucked the ends in. “Can you manage or do you need help?”

John began to fumble ineffectually at his shirt buttons.

“Chuh! Here, let me.” He turned off the shower and reached in.

“Hands are still kinda numb,” John said, listing to one side.

Rodney pushed him upright, tugged his shirt off and let it fall and then began pulling John’s t-shirt off over his head. John wobbled and slid down the wall, wincing as his injured foot skidded over the slick surface.

“Come out of there where I can get at you!” Rodney maneuvered his wet, once more shivering friend out of the shower stall and sat him on the toilet seat. The t-shirt had got stuck with one arm still in and the other bunched up over John’s shoulder. He pulled it off, and John’s hair stuck up briefly and then sagged wetly over his face. Rodney undid his pants. “Lift up,” he said. John raised himself ponderously and Rodney roughly pulled down his pants and underwear, jerking them where they caught in sodden folds. He threw them into the shower, which was now a jumbled mass of soaking wet clothing.

It occurred to Rodney, distantly, that John Sheppard was sitting, naked and vulnerable, in his bathroom, but he was too busy with a mixture of annoyance, concern and ruthless efficiency to think much about it. He grabbed another towel and, starting with his hair, began to rub John dry. The towel covered his face, while he gave John’s head a good hard rub all over, in all directions, ignoring the muffled protests. He worked his way down, moving round to dry John’s back, vigorously working over his shoulders and chest and then all the way down each leg and in between his toes. Anything else, John could do himself; one had to draw the line somewhere, even when rescuing a friend from certain hypothermia. He pulled his old bathrobe down from its hook on the door, bundled John up in it and then flapped at him until he heaved himself to his feet, Rodney’s shoulder once more supporting his weight beneath his arm. Their hoppalong technique brought them to Rodney’s bed, where he lowered John down and allowed him to sag back against the mounded pillows.

“I need to take this bandage off,” said Rodney. “It’s all wet and looks like it’s been bleeding again. You’ve probably torn the stitches or something and Carson will lecture you for not resting. And for being an idiot. Which you are.”

“Thanks.”

“Hmph.”

He unwound the soaked bandage, peeled off the layer of gauze beneath and threw both in the wastebasket.

“I think you’ve got away with it. I’ll rebandage it and Carson’ll never know the difference. Not unless I tell him. Which I might.” He looked up. “And there’s no point doing the eyebrow thing at me. It’ll be no more than you deserve if he chains you to an infirmary bed!”

John rubbed his brows as if to find out what they were doing. Rodney fetched his first aid kit, dumped it on the bed and began sorting through the contents. He broke off to flick the on-switch on his coffee machine, then resumed.

“So,” he began, shooting a glance at John’s face, now a more lively shade of pink, “while we’re here, we’re going to talk about this.”

John groaned.

“Oh, yes, Colonel, talk. The one where you open your mouth and words come out.” Rodney played with the bandage in his hands, regarding John’s feet. He thought about tying them together to prevent escape attempts. “To resume our ‘rain stopped play’ conversation, we have established that Hedda’s so generous tweaking of our personalities has resulted, whether we like it or not, in a certain mutual attraction. Keep still! As I was saying, a certain mutual attraction!” Rodney’s glare was wasted on the top of John’s head, his hair and protuberant lower lip the only features visible. “Obviously, your approach is to avoid the issue and hope it’ll go away, and in the meantime whip yourself into a frenzy of self-recrimination- “

“I wasn’t- “

“Yes. You were.” Rodney continued wrapping the bandage round John’s foot. “And, you know what? Maybe you’re right! Maybe it will go away. Maybe tomorrow we’ll once more be all about the laydeez!”

John snorted.

“But maybe it won’t! So, the question is, what do we do about it?”

“What can we do about it? Dial up the Ancient helpline again?”

“We could go and see Chaya.”

John grunted, noncommittally.

“Couldn’t we?”

“They put her in solitary, McKay. I think she’s pretty much out of the loop.”

Rodney tucked the end of the bandage in and fiddled with the contents of his first aid kit. “I don’t see that we’ve got a lot of options, then.” He opened and closed a safety pin, feeling the slide of metal against metal and the tension in the tiny spring. “Unless… Unless you wanted to, er, maybe, give it a go?”

The tousled head jerked up and John’s eyes met Rodney’s for a split second before skating away to stare intently at the burbling coffee machine.

“Talk to me, Sheppard! Come on, what’s going on beneath all that hair?”

John twitched at the tie of his bathrobe. He sucked in his lower lip and his eyes drifted from the coffee machine even further away from Rodney’s face. His frown doubled in intensity, before he forced out grinding words. “So, we have… ‘feelings’. For each other. They’re not real, are they? Hedda just planted this stuff in our heads to mess us up. None of it’s real." The warmth of the shower hadn’t lasted long, nor the relaxed heaviness on Rodney’s shoulder as he had helped John out of the bathroom. John’s face was pale again, his jaw tight.

“What’s real?” Rodney demanded. “What’s unreal? So, we’ve been fundamentally altered by an interfering higher being. No, it’s not something I chose, and yes, I’m angry about it! But, you know, shit happens. It’s happened to us before and it’ll happen again, and out of all the weird shit, I’d say this isn’t the worst.”

John snorted and shook his head. “It’s like what we did to Michael. Made him something he wasn’t.”

“Okay, yes, and when he changed back he was, admittedly and justifiably, pissed. So it’s possible that if Miss White Ribbons suddenly reappears and re-up-and-downs us back to our old selves, we might have a sudden reverse of feeling. If not revulsion.” He scrunched his eyes tight and scrubbed at them. “Look, Sheppard… John. What we went through yesterday - thinking we were going to die - sometimes I think that kind of thing’s all in a day’s work for us; extreme danger, imminent death, last minute save and make sure you file a report. But being used to it doesn’t make it okay. Being able to pack it all away and carry on with life, it doesn’t - It’s not -.” Rodney broke off and scrubbed once more at his pricking eyes. He took a deep breath and looked directly at his friend. “It’s not okay. I’m not okay. And I’m especially not okay with having to deal with it on my own; coming back to my quarters at the end of a shit-storm of a mission and just going to bed on my own. Alone in the dark with all that crap going round in my head and feeling like I’m clinging to life with bleeding fingertips and that next time, next time it’ll get me. The darkness’ll get me and then my life will be over and I’ll be nothing and no-one and the universe’ll just go on without me. It’s -, it’s too much and I can’t, I don’t want to be dealing with that stuff on my own anymore.” He sniffed and squared his shoulders. “So, what it comes down to is this: I know how I feel right now and that gives me a good idea of how you must feel. So, maybe I’m being a little premature here, but I say, why not? Why not just take the lives we’ve been given and run with them?”

“Why not? Because I can’t, Rodney,” John growled. “I can’t be doing… that stuff. It’s too dangerous."

“Dangerous? What’s dangerous is the Wraith! The Genii! Life in general! You’re going to pass up a chance at something good between us because you’re afraid of regulations?”

“Yes, I’m afraid of regulations. Because one hint of anything like that and I’ll be out of here and replaced and there’ll be nothing anyone can do. Not you, not Elizabeth and certainly not me!” His voice had risen and he sat up, away from the pillows.

Rodney’s heart ached for the worry he saw in John’s eyes. He reached out, but let his hand fall softly to the blanket. “And who d’you think’s going to tell the SGC? Or the IOA? This is Atlantis, John! The city we’ve both saved multiple times, the people we’ve both saved! Who’s going to deny you any happiness you can screw out of life before your next insanely suicidal bid for our survival?”

John’s face was closed-off, his lips pressed tightly together.

Rodney sat back on his heels and let his hands fall to his towel-clad thighs. “So, what do you think we should do, then? What’s your grand plan?”

“We just carry on. We do our jobs.”

Rodney sagged. “We carry on. We do our jobs,” he repeated tiredly. “We squash it all down and deny we feel anything.”

“It’s not -”

“Real,” Rodney interrupted. “It’s not real.” His knees hurt and he could see that there was dust and an odd sock beneath his bed. He looked at John; the defensive arms folded across his chest, the black brows lowered, shuttering his face. “You know, I’d started thinking this might be a good thing for us? Friends to lovers? It’s not so big a stretch is it?” He shrugged and tried to rub away the tension in his forehead. “But I suppose it’s just too far, for you. It’s me, again, isn’t it? Saying the wrong thing. I always get this stuff wrong.”

John’s throat moved convulsively. He slithered half off the bed, snatched up his crutches from the floor and heaved himself to his feet. “I can’t… I just can’t.” His voice cracked.

“Don’t just leave!” Rodney scrambled to his feet.

John slapped the door control hard.

“No, John, don’t! The tie on my robe always…”

The doors parted on a passing gaggle of female biologists who definitely didn’t need any further instruction on male anatomy.

“...comes undone,” Rodney finished.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rodney and John begin to explore their new relationship. Rodney decides research is necessary.

John smacked the controls and the doors slid shut on the wide, appraising eyes, blushes and smirks. He sagged forward and his head impacted the firmly closed doors with a hollow thud.

“John, I, um.” Rodney reached out and touched one drooping shoulder. “Look, just come and sit down.” No reaction. “The coffee’s ready.”

The shoulders sagged further and John turned, the tie hanging down, the bathrobe flapping open. His face was scrunched tight, as if in pain. Rodney’s brows twitched together in sympathy and there was an ache in his chest and a craving in his arms that he knew would be assuaged if he could wrap himself around his friend and hold him close. He raised a hand tentatively and left it hovering in the air between them. 

John opened his eyes and his tongue flickered over his lower lip. Rodney observed his own hand as it reached out, bridging the gap. It floated higher, the fingers curled and their backs brushed lightly down John’s cheek, catching on the roughness of his jawline. Then it descended through the rising heat from their bodies, and opened out flat, fingers splayed to parallel John’s chest. It moved closer until soft hairs tickled at Rodney’s palm. Just a little further, the hair compressed and he felt the firmness of John’s skin, the quick beat of his heart and the fine trembling running through his frame. John’s lips parted, but he didn’t speak.

Rodney swallowed, his heart raced and his bare chest tingled with the proximity to his friend’s. Short, dark hairs curled around the sides of his fingers. He didn’t dare move his hand, didn’t want to go forward into the next moment in time, where John would draw away, tie up the robe, demand to borrow Rodney’s clothes and leave, closed off and battened down and crushed into that place where tender feelings for a team-mate weren’t allowed to exist. The crutches creaked and shifted. Rodney closed his eyes and felt his mouth droop into resigned acceptance.

A soft breeze puffed on his cheek and then there was a quick, warm press against his down-turned lips. Rodney’s eyes blinked open to confront wide, scared hazel and John’s mouth, hovering at an estimated eight point five centimetres from his. The bathrobe still flapped open, the fabric brushing against Rodney’s sides. A surge of words filled his head, but he spoke none of them. He stood, silent, his hand held to John’s chest, and let the moment stretch.

The pain was visible as it crept into his friend’s eyes and John turned away with a groan and sat down heavily on the bed, drawing the robe tightly around him and tying the belt in a double knot.

Rodney sat down next to him.

John dropped his head into his hands, his fingers writhing through his hair, and groaned again. Then he embarked on a series of soft but heartfelt curses.

Rodney played with one thumbnail. “Look, if you really don’t want to… do anything, um, that’s okay.”

John sat up abruptly. “It doesn’t matter now, does it?” He pointed a stabbing finger at the door. “They saw us both half-naked in your quarters! It’ll be all over the city!”

“So, what if it is? They won’t make an official report!”

“That’s not the point.” He half-turned to face his friend. “You don’t get it, do you? I can’t have the whole expedition gossiping about me in corners. Because if I don’t have their respect, I can’t do my job. I need people to have absolute faith in me as a commander, or they won’t obey my orders when it counts and then we’re all dead!”

“They do have absolute faith in you, John!”

“They won’t if they think I’m fucking my teammate!”

“Yes they will.” Rodney ran a hand through his still-damp hair. ”You say I don’t get it - you’re the one who doesn’t get it! You won’t lose their respect. Most of them think we’ve been carrying on since the beginning, anyway.”

“What?”

"Oh, come on, even you couldn't be so oblivious to all the rumours; me and you, you and Teyla, you and Elizabeth, you and Ronon! Actually, most of them are about you. My point is, nobody cares! Or, at least, they care, but not in a bad way. They all know the stakes here, they've all seen caskets sent back through the Gate and nobody's going to deny you a chance to have a good time or a relationship or whatever."

John stared at the floor, his eyes blankly concealing the inner turmoil which his taut mouth and twitching jaw muscle gave away. “What about Ronon? Teyla?”

“Oh, come on. You’ve heard Ronon’s ‘Tales of the Satedan military’; they didn’t exactly work from the textbook of heterosexual norms. And Teyla? Ask, tell, make up a song-and-dance routine - she’s all about open expression of feelings! You know that.”

Rodney got up, poured the coffee and passed John the E=mc2 mug. He took the mug with the wanted poster on it (Schroedinger’s cat. Dead or alive) and sat down on the bed again. They both sipped, even though the coffee was way too hot.

The damp towel was cold against Rodney’s skin. He would get dressed and take the pile of sodden clothes down to the laundry for drying. “You can borrow some of my stuff.”

“Thanks.”

Rain lashed in furious gusts against the window. The floor felt cold against Rodney's feet.

"I'm going to get dressed."

"Wait." John set down his coffee on the nightstand. His hands came together in his lap, fingers twisting around each other. 

Rodney waited.

"Uh, you know I'm not very good at, uh, feelings and stuff." He stared intently at his tangled fingers, then sighed heavily, sucked in his lower lip, released it and puffed out his cheeks in a long, self-deprecating breath.

"Yes, I think we've established that fact."

A small smile flickered over John's lips. "Look, it’s not that I don’t… I mean I want to, I think… But…” He heaved another deep sigh. “I don’t know!” His mouth compressed tightly as if locked against further use of words.

Rodney watched his friend's struggling features, his heart twisting as the lines deepened between John's brows. John didn't need to say anything else; with flat hopelessness, Rodney already knew. In a moment his friend would get up and fling on some of Rodney's clothes; he'd leave with a wordless shrug, which would stand for apology and a plea both for understanding and future silence. And Rodney would accept the apology and he would understand and, yes, if that's what John wanted, he would be silent, on that subject at least. He turned his head away and waited for the bounce of the mattress which would mean John was leaving.

The bed wobbled, but then there was warmth and pressure at his side. Rodney’s eyes darted sidelong. A blue, robe-clad leg was pressed to his. There was a huffed sigh, a shake of damp, black hair in the periphery of his vision and then, slowly, hesitantly, John’s arm slid across, until his hand rested on Rodney’s towel-covered thigh.

“John?”

Rodney watched the hand. John’s hand. On his leg. He raised his eyes slowly and looked at his friend’s face, seeing fear, awkwardness and confusion, but also, in those changeable eyes, the gleam that always sprang to life when John was about to embark on an insanely risky gambit which would, if it succeeded, save them all. Gently, he covered John’s hand with his own. “Are we- are we doing this?”

John shrugged. His eyes fell to their hands. His voice husky, he said, “Yeah. I think we are.”

“You’re sure? Because you seemed pretty set against -”

“Rodney.” John’s lips twisted into a desperate smile. “Let’s just go with it.”

“Okay. Okay. I can do that.” Rodney’s gaze darted between John’s eyes and his lips. Should he? Yes, yes he should. Enough pussy-footing around! He leant toward John. John leant toward him. There was a brief moment of confusion where they both angled the same way and then both the other way, then John made an ‘after you’ expression with his eyebrows (how did he do that?) and then their lips were together and they were actually kissing.

And it was sweet, so sweet, because even though John’s lips had pressed to his before, it wasn’t the same because he’d had his eyes shut and he hadn’t been expecting it, so that this was their first time, their first kiss. It was almost unbearably, painfully sweet. John’s lips were warm and soft and surrounded by the scrape of his stubble and they parted just a little so that the warmth and softness combined with slick wetness, and the sensation set off a chain reaction of tingling and fizzing which travelled throughout Rodney’s body. He felt John’s fingers curling around his upper arm, sliding over his skin. 

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190544196@N08/50472201182/in/dateposted-public/)

Then suddenly the lips against his were hard and John’s fingers were tense around his arm. Too far; already it was too much and too far for John, and he was going to freak out and it would all be over.

“You’re freezing!”

“What?”

John’s hand rubbed up and down his arm, and then his other hand was on Rodney’s shoulder.

“You’re freezing cold. Why didn’t you say?”

“Oh, er, I was distracted I suppose. And, you know, damp towel and nothing else, so…”

“Get dressed,” John ordered.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. And pass me some stuff. I’ll get dressed too.”

“Oh. Yes. Of course.” Rodney got up, stiffly, only now conscious of his chill. He threw John some clothes and pulled some on himself. The goosebumps on his arms subsided, but he regretted the loss of exposed skin on his own and his friend’s part, just when things were starting to happen.

“Is there more coffee?”

“I’ll pour some.”

John picked Rodney’s laptop up from his desk. “There any movies on here we haven’t seen eight times?”

“No.”

“Perfect.”

“What?”

“It won’t matter if we don’t pay attention.” John grinned at him, flung back the blankets on the bed and bashed the pillows into shape. Then he got in, laptop in hand. “C’mon, McKay. Get in.”

“Oh. Yes. Right.” He set their refilled mugs down to either side of the bed and got in. He pulled the blankets back up over both of them, then they both supported the laptop on their raised knees. “Apart from the whole being in bed together aspect, this is what we normally do.”

“Yeah, except now we’re cozy.”

“You’ve never struck me as being particularly into coziness.”

“That’s all you know! And, anyways, I think we’d better not rush things. In case we regret it. Now, what’ll it be? Shall we go with rampaging dinosaurs? Car chases and explosions?”

“Jurassic Park, please. The first one.”

“Why d’you always want to watch the first one?”

“It has the best T. rex bits.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

oOo

“There’s not much left.”

“No,” said Rodney. “It was supposed to be fried chicken-thing tonight, too. That’s what you get for letting sleeping Colonels lie.”

“You didn’t want to move either.”

“You were leaning against me. Snoring. I didn’t want to disturb you. And at least it’s quiet now. No smirking biologists.”

“I’d forgotten about them.”

“I hadn’t.” Rodney glared at a solitary archaeologist until the man slid furtively out of his seat, bussed his tray and left. John was struggling with his crutches.

“Leave it, Peg-leg, I’ll get you a tray.” Rodney slid two trays along in front of the servery. “What’ll it be? Tava bean pie or tava bean stew?”

John grimaced. “I might just have a sandwich.”

“No, you won’t, you just had a sandwich earlier. Proper food, now, Sheppard.”

“The stew, then.”

“Two stews, please,” Rodney said to the server, regarding the spicy bean mixture with disfavour. “And God help the ventilation system,” he muttered, taking two bread rolls with a vague idea that the extra bulk might go some way toward mitigating the worst effects of the stew.

“Sir?”

“Nothing. Is there any dessert left?”

The server gestured toward a bowl. “Fruit,” she said, forbiddingly.

Rodney narrowed his eyes and took two appley things and poured two glasses of water. “I’ll take your tray and then come back for mine,” he said to John.

John crutched behind him. “What’s with the dirty looks between you and Airman Rhys?”

“Who? Oh, you mean the Custard Dragon.”

“What?”

“Custard Dragon. She and I have a running battle going over dessert sauce quantities. I, er, I helped myself once, when she was busy. To save her time, you know. She seemed to think my portion size was excessive.”

“You shouldn’t wind up the kitchen staff, Rodney.”

“I’m not winding them up. Just making sure they’re fully aware of my dietary requirements, i.e. hold the citrus and plenty of everything else.”

He put John’s tray down, pulled out a chair, took John’s crutches and placed them on top of the next table, to deter other late diners from sitting near them. Then he returned to the servery, favoured the Custard Dragon with a haughty look of unconcern and bore his steaming portion of dubiousness back to their table.

“Is it edible?”

John shrugged and dunked a torn chunk of bread into the stew. “It tastes fine, but that’s not the issue, is it?”

“Tava beans,” said Rodney, darkly, sitting down. “I think the Athosians must have built up some kind of immunity. Although they do live in tents.” He took a large spoonful. “Good ventilation.”

“Ha, yeah.”

They ate in silence. Rodney found his thoughts running on the events of the previous day.

“So, when did you realise?”

“What?”

“That you found me irresistibly attractive.”

John’s shoulders tensed and he darted a glance over his shoulder.

“There’s nobody there.”

“I know, but… Do we have to talk about this here?”

Rodney nodded decisively. “Yes, we do. So, when?” He inserted another large mouthful of stew and regarded John intently.

John tore small pieces off his bread roll. “Pretty much straight away.”

“Really?”

“You were lying face down, Rodney!”

“So?”

John glanced from side to side, his eyes furtive, and then leant toward Rodney and muttered, reluctantly, “You have a nice ass. Satisfied?”

“I do?”

“Oh, come on, McKay, that’s common knowledge!”

“Oh, I see. No doubt Cadman took notes when she unethically annexed my body! And probably pictures. There weren’t pictures were there?”

John shook his head. “No. As far as I know, Cadman’s pretty tight-lipped about the whole thing.”

“As far as you know,” said Rodney, doubtfully. “What do you mean by common knowledge, then? Who goes around looking at my ass?” He smirked. “Apart from you, of course.”

John glared at him. “Think about it, Rodney! How much of your time is spent bent over Ancient tech? Or down on your knees with your head stuck inside something, ass hanging out for all to see? You can’t expect Marines who’ve been detailed to watch your six not to, well, ‘watch your six’!”

“Does that include you?”

“Only in a professional way! Up to now!”

“But now, your opinion of my ass has moved from the abstract knowledge of its fineness to in-depth lustful appreciation?”

John’s ears turned red and he began mashing the chunks of bread back into one coherent whole. “Uh, well, yeah.” His lips quirked up at one side and his eyes flicked to Rodney’s face and then back down to his bread-molding.

“Hm. Yes. I suppose it is a fine example.”

John’s eyes flicked up and down again, his brows slightly contracted.

“Oh, yours too, of course!”

This met with no reaction, other than a compression of John’s mouth.

“I mean it! You have a nice ass too!”

John shrugged awkwardly. “You don’t have to pretend, Rodney.”

“Why would you think I’m pretending?”

John shrugged again.

“Okay, so it’s not at the fulsome, succulent end of the ass spectrum, but it has a certain compact charm.” Rodney stared ruminatively at his tava beans. “I think it’s the contrast between muscular strength and pale, yielding softness. Anyway, I like the way it moves,” he said, sucking at his spoon so that the beans popped into his mouth, one by one.

“You were watching, on the path yesterday.” John picked up his spoon and sorted through the swimming beans.

“Of course I was watching. I couldn’t not watch. It was fascinating. It was when I realised I was mesmerised by your ass that I knew something had changed!”

John shook his head, his eyes on his stew, colour spreading over his face.

“So,” said Rodney, summing up his findings, “it turns out that we’re both ass men.”

“McKay!”

Rodney wondered if John’s face could get any redder.

“Not that I want to label us, or anything. And to prioritise any one body part over the others seems like discrimination. I think I’m going to pursue an equal opps policy. When the time comes.”

“When the time comes?” John mumbled, head hanging, his gaze fixed on his beans.

“Well, when we, er, you know, start putting theory into practice.” Rodney cleared his suddenly tightened throat. He felt his face join John’s at the high end of the infrared spectrum. Theory was all very well, but practice was terrifying; what if it all went wrong? What if it went wrong and it was his fault? He finished his stew and picked up his appley thing.

John held his fruit in both hands, apparently fascinated. “So, apart from, er, thinking about, um…”

“What, lusting after your body?”

“Huh, yeah, apart from that. D’you feel any different?”

“What, you think Hedda did something else?”

“No. I just -. If we’re gay now, I thought we’d feel different.” He looked around at the empty Mess Hall, leant across the table and stage whispered, “I don’t feel… ‘gay’.”

“Well, why would you? Did you used to wake up every day and say, ‘Wow, how heterosexual am I?’ Oh, wait, you probably did. You probably had to salute the flag and renew your vows of straightness every day as part of your basic training. And practice manly swaggering in formation and synchronised grunting and back-slapping.”

John shrugged. “Something like that." He gazed abstractedly to one side, then his eyes slid back to Rodney's. "Are you sure we're gay, though? We could be... both, or something."

"What, bi? I have explored that angle, actually." Rodney gave his friend a run-down of his tabulated analysis.

"God, McKay, what is it with you and spreadsheets? Maybe you should just cuddle up to your laptop!"

"Oh, very funny. Anyway, my conclusion was ambiguous. I can still see that women have their attractions, but I couldn't pin myself down to any properly enumerated values. Even the fair Sam Carter couldn't stop my mind from wandering." The soft curve of John's lower lip, however, fixed Rodney's mind firmly on his friend; there was a very slight dip in the centre. He wondered what it would be like to draw that rounded lip gently in between his own and taste it. "How about you? Do you still find women attractive?"

John shrugged and gave a clueless grunt.

"Think about it," insisted Rodney. "Think breasts. Think hair. Think various womanly attributes." 

John frowned down at the congealing remains of his bean stew. Rodney watched him anxiously. Any second now, the dark-haired incarnation of Captain James T Kirk might re-emerge and Rodney's maelstrom of doubt, desire and desperation would resolve itself into emptiness as he was left floundering in John's testosterone-fuelled wake. His friend's eyes crept up from his tray and met Rodney's. His mouth parted, revealing that little dimple in the centre of his lower lip. His eyes glowed, not in a bad, Goa'uldish way, but in a thinking-lustful-thoughts way. Recalling past conquests, no doubt. Rodney's shoulders sagged along with his heart.

"Quit it, McKay."

"What? I'm not doing anything!"

"You're doing that face. How am I meant to think about girls with you looking all, you know?"

"No. I don't know. Enlighten me."

"That face you do when you're thinking too many things at once."

"I do have a pretty large thinking capacity, you know. Hello? Genius, here."

"Not that kind of thinking. I guess I mean feeling."

"Oh. Feelings. Come on, then. Dredge your limited vocabulary. Let's hear it!"

John rolled his eyes, his lips compressed together. "Okay, so it's like you delegate parts of your face to different expressions. Your eyes; they go all wide and blue and scared. Your mouth is kinda flat, only droopy on one side, like it means, 'I know this is going to be bad - just let me have it.' But then there's your chin."

"My chin is expressive?"

"Yeah, sure," said John. "You're chin's the guy saying, 'You want some? Come and get it then!'"

"Oh. I didn't realise."

"You're doing it again."

"I'm sorry." There was a solitary tava bean abandoned in Rodney's bowl. He empathised with it.

"Hey, no, I didn't mean it like that." A warm hand pressed Rodney's arm. He looked up. John was smiling. Not his goofy grin or his lop-sided smirk; a different smile, a concerned, friendly, maybe even affectionate smile. "It's one of your best faces."

"I have others?"

"Lots. If I was like you, I would've made a spreadsheet to list them all."

"All the possible permutations."

"Yeah. There'd be thousands. Like a combination lock."

"I'll give you the key."

John smirked and looked away. Rodney considered his friend and colleague. This was the man who'd played like a schoolboy with the Ancient shielding device, who'd shot at him and pushed him over a balcony and laughed with him; who argued with him about the relative merits of Spider Man versus Super Man, who was ridiculously competitive over video games, when Rodney hadn’t even been cheating. Well, not much. And, he was also the man who flipped Rodney a casual ‘So long’ and went off to give his life to save them all. “We’re still us,” said Rodney. “No matter what else we are.”

“Yeah. Us, but not us. How does that even work? ”

“What makes one person straight and another gay? Who knows? The fact that we’re still us, but in new bodies would suggest there’s a physical, chemical factor, but to reduce something so fundamental to a person’s identity down to a bunch of chemicals seems overly simplistic, not to mention crass. On the other hand, if you believe in a soul separate from the body, which having been ascended into a form of pure energy, you kind of have to take as read, then maybe that little minx, to put it mildly, actually jiggled around our essential essence to make us gay, a thought that makes me even more uncomfortable.” 

John’s jaw tensed. He turned his fruit, holding onto the stalk; the stalk came away and he continued to contemplate it.

“Sheppard?”

His mouth quirked in a rueful grimace. “I’m not saying I was the world’s best at relationships with women. But at least I kinda knew what I was doing. This is like -.” He huffed and shook his head. “It’s like, one day you’re flying Black Hawks and the next you’re on F-16s! It’s confusing!”

Rodney smiled. “A whole new set of pre-flights to learn?”

“Pre-flights! Take-off, manoeuvres, landing! I wouldn’t know where to start!” He hesitated. “Uh, I don’t suppose you…”

“No. It’s the blind leading the blind here.” He looked at his friend’s careworn face and his drooping shoulders. Put Sheppard down in the middle of a warzone or indeed any other life-threatening scenario, and he was in his element; resolute, decisive, violent when necessary, Put him in a situation where he needed to work through and come to terms with his feelings and he was lost in the wilderness without a compass. Rodney squared his shoulders. He wasn’t the most emotionally aware man in either of the galaxies known to him, but, in this case, Sheppard needed him to take charge. He snapped his fingers decisively. “Research and Development!”

“What?”

“Research - we watch gay porn. Development - we try it out!”

John covered his face with both hands. “Oh God!”

“It’s the best way, Sheppard. We need to take a methodical, scientific approach if we’re going to make the best of the situation.”

John groaned.

“Seriously, Sheppard, you’re military, you must have heard of the seven Ps: proper planning and preparation prevents piss poor performance! We’re going to need a plan of all the techniques and strategies -”

“Like a protocol to pre-empt painful penetration?”

Rodney cleared his throat. “Let’s not rush things,” he said, huskily. “As I was saying,” he continued, “we need a plan of all the techniques and strategies and then we can each rate them according to certain specified criteria.”

We’re giving marks out of ten?”

“No. We’d soon be into two, if not three decimal places if we gave marks out of ten, which would just look messy. Marks out of a hundred would be better. And then we’ve still got the decimal places for greater resolution.”

“So, we’d rate things according to how much we like them?”

“Basically, yes. But we’d have to calibrate the scale. For example, what’s the most average, don’t-care-either-way thing you can think of? Totally neutral, fifty-fifty, take or leave?”

John rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “I guess I’ve always thought the M9s were pretty average. They do the job, there’s nothing bad about them, but, my P14’s way better. Now that’s a decent weapon!”

“That’s because Para-Ordnance is a fine Canadian manufacturer.” Rodney sniffed. “I’m not sure I can get on board with the whole weapons comparison, though.” He snapped his fingers again. “I know! The mash at the SGC. Have you ever tasted anything quite so neutral in your life? A flavour and texture so inoffensive it barely registers on your palate?”

“So SGC mash is fifty?”

“Yes! Now one hundred is going to take some serious consideration, but zero’s obvious.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. You remember Dr Bayar?”

“The Turkish guy? Oh, yeah, that juice stuff, I remember!”

“Who could forget? Turkish turnip juice. He used all his personal shipping allowance on the Daedalus to get that stuff.” Rodney shivered in disgust. “It was like rancid, pickled radishes. Except worse.”

John winced. “That’s zero, then.”

“Yes, and I don’t want to even contemplate what the guy-on-guy equivalent of turnip juice would be. I think I’d give up and join a monastery.”

John snorted and spat out a piece of his appley fruit. “Sorry, that didn’t land on you, did it?”

“I think it went on the floor.” Rodney continued nibbling away at the core of his fruit. John’s face had taken on a thoughtful, apprehensive look once more, and there was lip-chewing involved, which was rarely, if ever, a good thing. He couldn’t be thinking of backing out now. Could he? “Atlantis to Sheppard, come in.”

“What?”

“You zoned out on me. What’s up?”

“Nothing.”

“Yes there is. Tell me. You have to communicate if this is going to work. You do want it to work, don’t you? If you’re getting cold feet, just tell me now. Don’t bother to let me down gently - just let me have it!”

“Geez, calm down McKay!” John’s black brows bristled over his dark, meltingly chocolatey eyes. How did they change colour according to his mood? They were like those joke rings, those ones that were meant to tell you if you were in love. Jeannie had had one once. Rodney had tried it on, but it just stayed black. Which was such a comment on his love life as a whole.

“McKay!”

He jumped. “What?”

“Talk about zoning out!”

“Sorry, I, er, yes. Right. What were you saying?”

“I was saying -.” John took a deep breath and Rodney tried not to be distracted by the way his downcast eyelashes flared dark against his now pale cheeks. “This scientific approach. You’re not going to be, er, marking me. Are you?”

“What, plotting data points on a graph and extrapolating your future performance?” This didn’t raise the laugh that Rodney had hoped for. “No! Of course I’m not. Look, Sheppard, I’m as inexperienced as you are. I just naturally gravitate toward data acquisition and analysis. I’m not trying to put you off.”

“Oh. Okay, then.”

“So, gay porn!” said Rodney, with renewed relish. “A voyage into the Atlantis sub-intranet! You do know about that, don’t you?”

“Sure I do! You showed me.”

“Oh, yes, I did, didn’t I? Because there was that video, with that girl who looked like -”

“Colonel Carter.”

“Yes. Anyways, there’s plenty of gay porn to be had. Or so I believe.”

“So there must be other guys on Atlantis who are into the whole, you know...”

“And women. Yes. I would imagine so. Not that I go around interrogating my colleagues on a daily basis, or care either way. If they can just do their jobs with passing competence and manage to keep themselves alive from one week to the next, that’s enough for me.”

“Your pastoral care is heartwarming.” John raised his water glass in a mock toast.

“I’m here to keep our asses out of the fire, not be nice to people. Although I wouldn’t mind being nice to your ass.”

Water sprayed all over the table, which Rodney decided was their cue to leave the mess hall.

oOo

John had to drop in at the infirmary, so that Carson could check on his foot, so Rodney, remembering the sodden mess in the shower stall, dumped the whole lot in a plastic bag and dragged it down to the laundry. They’d agreed to meet back up at John’s place, and Rodney arrived to find a distinctive toasty scent in the air and John, reclining on his bed, with his laptop and a large bowl of popcorn.

“Popcorn? Seriously? You made popcorn for us to eat while watching gay porn?”

John looked offended. “We shoulda had popcorn earlier. Movies need popcorn.”

“Yes, but this is more in the nature of scientific research! Not leisure!”

“You don’t have to eat it.”

Rodney huffed. “Okay. Sorry. Maybe it was a good idea.”

He sat down next to John and John pushed both the laptop and the popcorn over, so that they rested between his and Rodney’s legs. John had changed out of Rodney’s clothes, he noticed. He had a black polo shirt on and a pair of blue jeans which Rodney couldn’t recall him wearing before. He was, however, deeply appreciative of the overall effect and the fact that the shirt buttons had been given the night off.

“So, what have you chosen for our education?” asked Rodney.

“Uh, well, I'm not sure. Maybe we could just watch a movie? Or, how about the X-files? Did you know there's all eleven seasons on here?"

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Look, you agreed to this, Sheppard!"

"I know. But watching guys do stuff?" John's face screwed up. "Sounds kinda gross."

"It's instructional," insisted Rodney. "And, yes, maybe gross too, but we need to know what we're up against!"

"Up against? We're carrying out a threat assessment now?"

Rodney pinned John with a steely gaze. "I don't know about you, Colonel, but if I'm doing this, I'm not only doing it right, I'm doing it with considerable expertise and, dare I say it, flair! Never let it be said that Rodney McKay did not excel in his chosen field!"

John shrank into the bedding, suitably chastised.

Rodney stabbed the keyboard down through the layers of the intranet into the sub-layer that Elizabeth pretended she didn’t know about. He ran the pointer down the list of files. “Oh. Wow. There's, er, well, there’s, um, quite a few.”

"I’m not watching 'Fister Act'!" said John, definitely.

"No. Or 'Fister Act 2'!" Rodney squirmed.

John smirked and pointed. "'Ocean's Eleven Inches'!"

"Ouch! Hey, how about 'Sorest Rump!'"

"Ha! No, let's have 'Village of the Rammed'!"

"Who thinks these things up? I mean, 'Edward Penishands'? Please!"

John choked with laughter. "Pulp Friction!"

"Night of the Giving Head!" Rodney slapped his thigh, clipping the edge of the popcorn bowl and covering himself in white fragments. "Hey, this looks a bit more subtle. How about 'Rising'? Or 'Hot Zone'?"

John shrugged. "Whatever. Or maybe 'ET, the Extra Testicle'."

"Oh, so many movies, ruined forever!" Rodney clicked decisively. "Let's go with 'Hot Zone'."

John took a huge handful of popcorn and shoved it in his mouth.

They watched.

The popcorn had definitely been a good idea. It meant that at least one of Rodney’s hands as well as his mouth was constantly occupied, which, for some reason, seemed essential. He shoved his free hand under his thigh.

The two on-screen studs quickly became acquainted. Or perhaps they’d been acquainted already, which might explain their extreme eagerness to remove most of their clothes when they were, after all, supposed to be occupied with some kind of construction. One of them, the more safety conscious, seemed determined to retain his hard hat in compliance with on-site regulations. The other discarded his hard hat pretty soon, but was obviously pretty attached to his tool belt; perhaps he anticipated having to make some emergency adjustments. Adjustments that could be made without the hindrance of underwear.

“Whoa!” said Rodney, spraying popcorn crumbs. “Do you think that’s real?”

John chewed and shrugged.

“It can’t be real! No way!” Rodney leant forward and peered intently at the screen. “Do you think it’s CGI? Or maybe surgery? What’s that mark there? Do you think that’s a join, where he’s… you know, had an extension?”

“Can you do that?”

“What, have an extension? Yes, I’m sure I’ve heard that’s a thing. And, well, Tool-belt’s is substantial, but Hard Hat, well, I’m sorry but that’s just not feasible!”

John took some more popcorn and chewed determinedly.

Rodney studied the two writhing forms, substituting himself and John for the shining, muscled nakedness, imagining the press and slide of John's skin against his own. 

“That’s some pretty sensitive equipment they’re using,” he remarked, his voice gratifyingly steady.

John squeaked. An actual squeak from Colonel John Sheppard.

“Not that! I meant the microphones. They’re picking up every little… Well, everything.” 

The squelchy kissing sounds continued and then the two bodies rolled and tangled themselves into a variety of unlikely poses, while the really excellent quality of sound reproduction (no amateur job, that was for sure), continued to deliver a plethora of licking and sucking, with liquid clarity. Rodney pulled the popcorn bowl further into his lap. John pulled it back, his increasingly wide eyes glued to the screen. The bowl twitched and the popcorn slid to one side. In the flickering light, colour bloomed in John's cheeks. Rodney squirmed and pulled his t-shirt away from his clammy chest. 

John’s chewing paused; he swallowed and coughed, glanced at Rodney and grimaced. Rodney's attention returned to the laptop.

“What’s he doing now? Oh! No! No, please, no! That’s just wrong on so many levels! I mean! It’s not sanitary for one thing! And it can’t be enjoyable! Not for Hard Hat, anyway!”

John swallowed his popcorn and cleared his throat. “He looks pretty into it,” he said, huskily.

“‘Into it’! Ew!” 

John sniggered.

"And I can't help thinking that Hard Hat's doing the lion’s share of the work, here. Tool-belt's just lying there, face down, letting it all happen!"

"Hard Hat's the foreman," commented John, gruffly. "He's, er… He's in charge."

John's face was flaming and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

"I suppose so," said Rodney, shooting John another sidelong glance. "Tool-belt just likes, er, taking it," he said, experimentally. John squeaked and huffed a shrinking laugh. Interesting.

“Now what’s he…? Oh. Oh, yes, well, I mean, I suppose you’d have to do that. Because, I mean, that’s, um, pretty small and that’s, er, well -”

“Huge,” supplied John. 

Rodney took some more popcorn and chewed, concentrating hard on the crunch and the little bits of husk that were stuck between his teeth. The camera angle changed, giving a close up of the action. Rodney felt his muscles contract and he squeezed his eyes nearly shut. John’s hand paused halfway between the popcorn and his mouth.

“Hard Hat’s hands are big too. Not just his -”

“Yeah.”

“Is that two he’s got in there?”

“Three,” John croaked.

“Oh, now he’s going to -”

John breathed in sharply through his teeth.

Rodney gripped the bedding with one clenched fist and crushed his popcorn to dust with the other. “It won’t -! Oh. It did. Well. There you are. I suppose lubrication is the key.”

“Huh!” John’s popcorn hand still hovered.

“Oh. Hard Hat’s, um, being quite aggressive now. Because I would’ve thought that’d hurt Tool-belt quite a bit. Does that face say pain to you?”

“Uh-uh.” John shook his head.

Rodney’s mouth wouldn’t stop moving. “It’s so difficult to tell with sex faces. Not that I’ve made a study of them, or anything. You can’t, can you? Because your attention’s usually engaged elsewhere, although maybe that’s where I’ve been going wrong, not doing the whole eye contact thing. There’s another fairly healthy indication that he’s enjoying it, though.” He crossed his legs to disguise his own healthy indication and took some more popcorn. “What are they doing now? Why has Hard Hat stopped? That looked like a pretty efficient way of doing things! Oh. I see. Face-to-face. Now Tool-belt can see what's going on. But where will the legs go? Oh, yes, well, fair enough. I can see the advantages,” Rodney approved. “Because now Hard Hat can just reach round and grab - Yes, exactly. His shoulders are going to be sore, though. Legs are heavy. And a tarp on a concrete floor wouldn't be my choice.”

John sniggered again. "Friction burns."

"Nasty."

They watched and ate.

“Impressive stamina,” Rodney remarked, wiping sweat from his brow.

“Uh-huh,” agreed John.

The slap of flesh on flesh grew in volume and intensity, the groans and moans became harsh grunts and yells. Rodney turned the volume down. John appeared catatonic. “They can’t keep this up for much longer. Oh. There. And yes, him too. Well, I call that efficiently co-ordinated.” The image froze. “And the director calls ‘It’s a wrap’. No revelling in the post-coital glow.”

“I don’t think porn movies go in for that kind of thing.”

“No.” Rodney closed the file, suddenly conscious of the heat all the way down his right side, and the slight drag on his skin as John’s chest rose and fell. “So…”

“Beer?”

“Yes, please.”

Rodney closed the laptop. John got up, tugging discreetly at his pants, and returned with two beers. They drank in silence.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Rodney put theory into practice.

John ran a finger around the lip of his beer bottle. "So, uh, that was... pretty full-on."

"Yes. I'd call that a fair assessment." Naked bodies moaned and writhed in Rodney's mind. Was he really going to do those things with his friend? With John Sheppard? He took a sip of beer. His arm brushed by John’s and he could feel John’s thigh, warm against his own on the narrow bed. “It’s certainly a lot to take in.”

John snickered.

“I didn’t mean that.”

“I know.”

What if it went wrong? If John didn’t like the things he did? If he decided it wasn’t worth it and that he still liked women after all or, even worse, found a different male partner? After all, although Rodney had realised that he actually was in love with John, he had no idea if his friend felt the same way, or even if their mutual lust was equal. Maybe he should ask. But then he’d get an answer and that wasn’t always a good thing. They should carry out his plan of campaign; try some things out, see what worked. But somehow his planning and strategizing didn’t seem applicable when he was sitting next to John’s warm, hairy presence and had to decide what to do, in the real world rather than inside his head.

Rodney took a gulp of beer, opened his mouth, shut it again and gulped some more beer which went down the wrong way. He choked. John thumped him on the back in a helpful but not very effective manner.

"Alright?"

"Yes. Thank you," Rodney gasped, finally. "Oh God, this is harder than I thought it'd be!"

"Yeah."

"Because when I think about what I could do or what you could do I just…"

"Choke on your beer?"

"Apparently so." He took a careful sip. "You realise what's wrong?"

"No. What?"

"The oh-so-helpful Hedda made us hot for each other but forgot to take away the inate inarticulacy and embarrassment of the average heterosexual male!"

"I think you can be bad at talking about stuff and be gay too."

"I suppose so. Look, maybe we should just start simple. Um, we could kiss. Couldn't we? That went reasonably well earlier. Didn’t it?"

John smiled shyly into his beer and shrugged.

"I'll take that as a yes. Put that down."

The both put down their bottles. They turned to face each other. John's eyes were wide and Rodney could see the light on the nightstand reflected in them. A lock of his hair hung down over his right eye. Rodney reached up and pushed it back, then gently stroked a line down John's cheek and watched his eyelashes flicker and felt the hot puffs of breath quicken as their lips approached. John's mouth curled slightly and Rodney leant further forward, ready to taste. 

Then John gave a great snorting guffaw and collapsed back onto the pillows, his hands over his face.

"Sheppard!"

John continued to shake with laughter, his legs drawn up.

"Well that totally spoiled the mood! Thank you very much!"

"I'm sorry, Rodney!" he said, his laughter subsiding.

John's hands fell to either side of his head and his legs stretched out, toes wriggling. He chuckled again and then yawned and stretched and his polo shirt rode up, exposing a narrow band of pale skin dusted with dark hair. The contrast of the soft skin against the sturdy fabric of John’s jeans was irresistible. Rodney reached out and ran one finger along, over the yielding softness of John’s stomach and the firmer hairless skin above his hipbone. John’s breath hitched, his eyes closed and his head tipped back, exposing the long v of his neck muscles, the shadowy cleft between his collar bones and the dark hair in the open neck of his shirt. Rodney's finger stroked back and forth, pushing just beneath the waistband, enjoying the rough drag of the denim above and the warm, coarsely-haired promise of the hidden skin below. John made a low, appreciative growl in his throat.

“You’re purring.”

John smiled. “It’s nice.”

“Sixty?”

“Easily”

Encouraged, Rodney said, "Hm, maybe this isn't so hard."

John waggled his eyebrows. "Isn't it?"

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Enough with the double entendres, Sheppard.”

John’s eyebrows pulled themselves into sorrowful peaks.

“And drop the puppy-dog eyes.”

The peaks rounded themselves into innocent curves.

“Your eyebrows have their own language; did you know that?”

John grinned. “What are they saying now?”

Rodney leant down to study them more closely. “I don’t think you want to know. They’re telling me all your darkest desires.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” Rodney placed a hand either side of John’s upraised arms and leant down further. The roving eyebrows climbed as far as they could toward John’s hairline and Rodney’s gaze let them escape and transferred itself to the changeable hazel eyes, shadowed and unreachable in the dim light. John’s tongue flickered over his lips as they parted and relaxed into that soft curve; the curve, which could, if John spoke, become a ‘Why?’ or a ‘When?’, but if he didn’t speak could just as easily form the beginning of a kiss.

Rodney kissed him. It was like a first time once more; just a light brush of dry softness, the closeness of John’s wide pupils more intimate than the kiss itself. Then he straightened his arms and looked down with wonder, his tingling lips curving into a smile the echo of John’s own. Drawn by the glimpse of vulnerability in the hazel eyes, Rodney kissed him again and lost himself in the meeting of his mouth with his friend’s. The words they’d shared, the smiles, the smirks, the jabbing sarcasm and the goading wit; all of those things lived in the touch of lip-to-lip and the mingling of breath, their friendship deepened and transformed by new togetherness. 

Rodney’s arms began to tremble and he collapsed onto his side, facing John. John also turned onto his side and scooted over, so that they lay, face-to-face, teetering at either edge of the narrow bed.

“That was pretty amazing.”

“You wanna score it?” suggested John.

“Oh, well, I don’t want to assign too high a value, because this is early days, but I think seventy-five anyways.”

“Yeah. I bet we can beat that, though.”

Rodney nodded eagerly. "Beat our high score?"

John grinned. "Ready player one?"

Rodney giggled. "Ready player two?"

"Yeah. What're we doing?"

Hard Hat and Tool-belt popped back into Rodney's mind, their naked, glistening bodies, the grabbing, the licking and the slurping. Keep it simple, he thought. "We could…" Rodney pulled at the front of his t-shirt.

"Off?"

"Off."

Rodney bounced upright on the bed, grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head. Something hit his cloth-covered nose. "Ow!"

"Sorry!"

He flung the garment away and rubbed the offended cartilage, glaring at John, who was wringing his polo shirt in his hands.

"Sorry," John repeated. "My elbow."

Rodney's eyes travelled over John's smooth shoulders, his finely-moulded collar bones and further down his compactly-muscled, hair-covered torso all the way to his low-riding jeans. He gulped and cleared his throat. "I'll er… I'll just have to get my revenge. Somehow."

John smirked and threw his shirt away.

"Lie down," Rodney ordered.

John complied. 

"Now, where shall I start?" His mouth watered. He leant down and dropped another light kiss on John's lips, but then ignored the yielding mouth and pressed his lips to scratchy stubble and on down John's throat. The hollow at the junction of his collar bones demanded special treatment; Rodney dipped his tongue in the cleft and tasted salt. John wriggled.

"Keep still."

"That tickled."

Rodney raised his head and projected stern disapproval. "This is my revenge on you for grievous nasal harm. You have to lie still and accept your punishment."

John pouted. "Yes, Rodney. Sorry, Rodney."

"Hmm."

Rodney ran his hands over and around the strong, lean shoulders and then down through the wild thickets of curling hair to the isolated peaks of John's nipples. He plucked at them experimentally. John's head rolled slowly from one side to the other, his jaw falling open to inhale a sharp breath of arousal. Rodney leant down and swiped his tongue over one hardened tip. He was rewarded by a moan. The little nub was irresistible and he sucked it into his mouth and nibbled gently, then a bit harder.

John jerked and yelled. “Jesus, McKay, what the hell are you doing?”

Rodney sat up, slid backward off the bed and fell on the floor. “Sorry! I didn't mean to bite you!"

"You nearly bit it off!" John’s face appeared over the edge of the bed. “Just come back up.”

“Maybe we should call it a night.”

“Get up here, Rodney. That’s an order.”

Rodney scrambled back onto the bed. “Sorry.”

“Stop apologising. Anyway, you said you were gonna get your revenge.”

“Yes, but I didn’t mean -”

“I know that. Don’t sweat it, McKay.”

Rodney lay down, facing John. “Do you want to kiss some more? That’s our best thing so far.”

“Sure.”

They both leant in. Rodney took care to get the angle right. Between twenty-five and thirty degrees would produce the best result, he thought; it would allow maximum lip contact with minimal chance of nose-clashing, an important consideration for his already abused cartilage. Their lips met once more and opened and Rodney felt his tongue sucked into John’s mouth; he moaned, feeling a hot ache in his groin. John took charge of the kiss, pressing Rodney to lie back on the bed and leaning over him; he pushed his way into Rodney’s mouth with his tongue, exploring. It was surely an eighty. Or more. Rodney’s fingers wandered down over John’s chest and scraped over the fastening of his jeans. He turned his hand palm-up and boldly pressed the distended fabric. John released the kiss and gazed down at him, his lips curving softly, his cheeks highlighted with a mixture of arousal and awkwardness.

Rodney was very conscious of his hand pressing upward, cupping the bulge in John’s jeans. John’s eyes skittered away from his. Should he push things further? They were good at kissing, he reminded himself. Really good. But there were other things they might be equally good at. Having been placed in this whole situation without consent, however, Rodney wanted to make sure any significant moves had John’s sign-off. But that involved asking. Putting actions into words. Which was fine when those actions involved manipulating the physical forces of the universe, but not so easy when they involved manipulating physical parts of his friend.

"Um… I think I really want to, er, that is if you want me to, because if you don't want to that's okay and I could just -"

"What?" John rolled back onto his side, supporting himself on one elbow. The pose made his chest muscles contract, which made Rodney think about doing all kinds of things he didn’t want to put into words.

He humphed, impatient with his own inarticulacy, and then knelt up on the bed and folded his arms determinedly. "I think we need to break down some barriers, here," he said, briskly. "Get some communication flowing. Call a spade a spade!"

"Huh. I've never heard it called that! What the hell shape is yours?"

"Not spade-shaped, thank you very much! It's cock-shaped. There I said it. Your turn."

"What, I have to say cock?"

"Say it how you like! Come on, you must have picked up hundreds of locker-room euphemisms over your years of military service!"

"Okay. Joystick," said John, looking him directly in the eye.

"Oh, very Air Force!" Rodney stared ruminatively at the ceiling. "To commemorate a sojourn at Oxford, I'm going with the archetypally British 'John Thomas'."

"And I'll raise you a 'pecker' for the good old US of A."

Rodney glanced down at John's jeans. "So I see. You'd better have a schlong to go with that."

"Or a whang."

"In the Latin, 'phallus' and probably in Ancient, too."

"Junk," replied John.

"How low-brow. And surely that's a collective term for cock and balls together. I'm not sure if that should be disallowed!"

"C'mon, Rodney. It's not a competition."

"It's always a competition. But, returning to British climes, the brusquely descriptive 'knob'."

"Hey, yeah, the RAF guys have some great ones. Prick, obviously, then you’ve got stuff like todger, plonker, trouser snake, pork sword…”

“Hey, it’s my turn, you cheat!”

“I’m not cheating, just being informative. Giving you the benefit of my experience.”

“It is cheating. You own me five turns.”

“Go on, then, let’s hear them.”

“Penis,” said Rodney, primly. “It had to be said.”

“Continue.”

“Hot-rod, hairy canary, winkle.”

“Winkle?”

“That’s what I called mine when I was a kid.”

“Okay. One more.”

Rodney riffled through his vocabulary like a card-index file. "Intromittent organ!" he leered, attempting a Sheppardly waggle of his eyebrows.

John snorted with laughter. "Hey there, McKay, don't overdo the sweet-talk." He let his elbow collapse and lay stretched out on his side. “So, what now? More vocab or some action?” 

Rodney braced himself and spoke. “Uh, well, I thought maybe we could, uh, touch each other’s, um...” Just say it! For God’s sake, just say it! “We could touch each other’s cocks.”

John sniggered. “I guess I could get me a handful of hot-rod.”

Rodney’s sniggers joined his friend’s and he lay down once more, so that they were face-to-face. “We could take the covers off the hairy canaries.”

“Yeah, and see if they tweet.” John’s upper hand reached forward tentatively and his fingers brushed over the top button of Rodney’s pants. “Shall I do yours and you do mine?”

“Okay.”

Rodney homed in on the metal button on John’s jeans and tried to work it loose one-handed while he felt John tugging at the fastenings of his pants. The tough fabric didn’t seem to want to relinquish its hold on the button. Rodney tried to bring his other hand to bear, but John’s arm was in the way. He needed to get a closer look and bent forward, his forehead colliding with John’s as he made the same movement.

“Ow. Maybe we should just -”

“Do our own?”

“Yes.”

Both men shuffled onto their backs, there was a swift release of fastenings, two sighs of relief and then they turned to face each other again. Rodney could see the fabric of John’s underwear where the denim fell to one side. Plain white. The opening gaped slightly revealing a sliver of darkness. Rodney licked his lips. He reached forward and their arms crossed between them, skin brushing against skin. He felt John’s hand on the fabric of his pants. He slipped his fingers into the enticing unknown and touched the thin cotton just as John began to explore his underwear. Rodney moved his fingers, rubbing gently, the fabric wrinkling over the hardness beneath, a yearning arising deep within him as he felt John’s firm touch. He groaned and his roving fingertips slipped between folds of fabric and met heat and delicate skin stretched over the solidity of John’s erection. He was touching John’s penis. His cock. His winkle. And John was touching his. Rodney’s face burst into an irrepressible grin. He felt his cheeks blaze and his eyes moisten and he looked across at his friend and saw a matching expression of pure, uncomplicated excitement; except John’s was goofier, obviously.

“Better than a video game, huh?”

Rodney chortled with enjoyment. He withdrew his hand. John’s brows contracted as his smile dropped away.

“Don’t panic! I’m not going anywhere. I just think we could lose a few more clothes. Make things easier.”

“Access all areas?” The inevitable eyebrow waggle accompanied this enquiry. “I like your thinking.”

Rodney flipped onto his back and the bed bounced as John did the same. John’s shoulder banged into his as they both arched up to pull their pants and underwear down, and then the bouncing threatened to throw him off the bed as they thrashed around, legs bent up, feet constricted by bunched-up clothing. Rodney freed himself first and took an elbow in the chest as John’s tugging at his reluctant jeans resulted in a sudden flinging arm.

“Oof!”

“Dammit, sorry!”

“Let me!” Rodney jumped off the bed, scuttled round to the foot and triumphantly pulled the tangle of fabric away from John’s feet and threw it across the room. Then he looked down and his friend was naked on the bed in front of him, completely exposed. And Rodney was exposed too, standing directly in John’s gaze, with nowhere to hide. The smile froze on his face and he shivered, but at the same time couldn’t look away from the expanse of naked flesh before him.

“Rodney?” John’s voice was uncertain, his hands at his sides twitching as if it was a huge effort not to cover himself. Rodney forced himself to meet his friend’s eyes and saw his uncertainty resolve into decision. “C’mere.” John held out his arms.

Rodney hesitated.

"Are you sure about this?"

"To be honest, McKay, my head's kinda lost control of the situation."

"The joystick's controlling the pilot?"

"Something like that."

Rodney put his hands over his crotch. "We should stop."

"Why?"

"Because we might regret it. We might blame each other and then not even be friends."

"I want this. You want it."

"We're not in control."

"Who's ever in control of this stuff? Come here."

Rodney was cold and never mind the sex stuff, he wanted the warmth of his friend's arms. He crawled up the length of the bed and lay down, his head pushed into John's chest, hair tickling his nose. Warm hands pressed him close and then there was a dab on the top of his head. Rodney’s heart lurched and he almost pulled away in surprise. Was that a kiss? Because those hot, sexy kisses had been great, but a dabbing peck to some random part of his scalp; well, that was something else entirely. That was the kind of casual but intimate affection that just didn’t happen between convenience-driven, quick-and-dirty ‘fuck buddies.’ Did it? Never having had such a crudely-named relationship, he wasn’t sure. What was this thing they were doing? It wasn’t just convenience, not as far as Rodney was concerned anyway. And the idea that it might be mere shallow gratification on John’s side didn’t ring true either; not any more. And especially not with warm hands stroking his back and the place where John had pressed his lips to the top of Rodney’s head tingling as if it might have set the seal on something. He pictured a wax seal, embossed with a crest, binding him round with a scarlet ribbon.

"Are you in there?"

Rodney nodded into the fluffy warmth.

"Are you coming out any time soon?"

Rodney shook his head.

"D'you wanna sleep?"

Rodney considered, and then sent his hand questing down between their bodies until he felt scratchy hair and then further until something twitched beneath his fingers. John's cock, he reminded himself, feeling his own twitch in sympathy. John's penis. He boldly encircled it and gave it a slight squeeze and wiggle, as if introducing himself.

"Pleased to meet you," rasped John. "Don't stop."

It was surprisingly easy, to grip John's cock in his hand and then squeeze and stroke up and down the shaft; surprisingly easy, with his head buried in the darkness of John's chest and no possibility of eye contact. Admittedly, the intimacy of the act would be increased if he could bring himself to gaze into John's eyes, or even look up to see the pleasure on his face. But for now, this was enough and, besides, he could tell that his friend was enjoying it. He could hear John's breath dragging in and out and feel the rapid expansion and contraction of his rib cage, and now all Rodney was doing was gripping and letting John's hips do all the work, thrusting forward into his hand, pulling back and then jerking forward again, which was good because his arm was constricted and he had the angle of approach all wrong. 

Rodney's breath was warm and damp on his face in the dark cave of John's body, the arm flung over him still holding him close. Small whimpers sounded above him and John's movements were sharper and faster. Rodney's hand was tired, but he wouldn't let go even if he got cramp and, anyways, surely his friend was close now? A few more thrusts and John's hips gave a ragged, shuddering heave. Rodney felt the groan that vibrated deep in John's chest and warm, sticky wetness coated his hand and his front and presumably John's too. The mess was worth it, though, if John's descent into extreme lassitude, flapping pats to Rodney's back and mumbled pleased-sounding words were anything to go by.

Rodney slowly tipped his head back and emerged, blinking into the soft light. A pulse beat rapidly in John’s throat and the stubble-shadowed underside of his jaw damply reflected the glow.

“I’ll clean up,” offered Rodney. The arms that had flopped limply away from his body came around him once more.

“Uh-uh.”

Rodney smiled, not that it was any great achievement to have reduced John Sheppard to complete inarticulacy. He wanted to see John’s face, but could only see the underside of his chin. His neck muscles contracted but then relaxed again, as if his head were too heavy to lift.

“Score?”

“Mmm.”

“That’s not a number, Sheppard.”

There was a snorting, lip-flapping noise which reverberated through John’s chest and stomach.

“Neither is that.”

John stretched, his abdominal muscles firming under Rodney's hands. “Off the scale."

“You’re not getting away with that - all that one hundred and ten percent nonsense.”

“Hundred, then.”

“That leaves us nowhere to go. And we’ve barely scratched the surface of our potential repertoire.”

“Not going anywhere. F'you wanna scratch my surface, go ahead.”

Rodney blew a raspberry against John’s chest. “Let me go. I need to get a cloth.”

“Uh-uh. My turn now.”

“You’ve just had your turn!”

“My turn to do you.”

“Oh. Yes, well, you know you don’t have to -”

John snorted. “Just shut up and take it, McKay.”

Rodney giggled. He squirmed his way up the bed until he could see John’s face; his eyes were drowsy under heavy lids, his cheeks still flushed with arousal, his mouth relaxed and soft. Rodney kissed him and felt a rush of warmth and desire. He drew back. John’s lips twitched into a wicked smirk and his stomach muscles trembled against Rodney’s as his hand slid between them and his fingertips tangled in Rodney’s pubic hair and gently tugged. Was he going to get his handful of hot-rod as promised? Would he look into Rodney’s eyes as he held him so intimately?

John began to wriggle his way down the bed.

“Where are you going?”

John stopped and looked up, then his eyes fell and fixed themselves on the centre of Rodney’s chest. “Uh, I thought I might, um, go in for a closer look. Check out the lay of the land.”

“A reconnaissance mission?”

“Yeah, uh, with a view to carrying out, um, a decisive air strike.”

Rodney frowned. “I’m not sure how to interpret that.”

John’s eyes sank lower until Rodney could only see the top of his head, the dark hair sweat-dampened and sticking in all directions. “Close quarters combat?” he mumbled.

“Hand to hand?”

A breath puffed against Rodney’s stomach and there was a totally indecipherable jumble of syllables.

“What?”

“Not hand to hand.” A pause. More huffing breaths. “Um. Maybe mouth to, er…”

“Oh! I see. Wow. That’s, er… Really?”

The hair nodded.

“And obviously you’ve never - I mean, are you sure?”

The shoulders shrugged. “Kinda.”

“Kind of sure? That’s not sure, then, is it?” Rodney gripped John’s shoulder. “Don’t, if you’re not sure. Really! Don’t!”

John’s head tipped back to fleetingly meet his eyes with an irresistible mixture of apprehension and lasciviousness. "Don’t try to stop me, McKay, I’m going in.” John wormed his way further down the bed. "Can you shift over a bit? My legs are hanging off."

Rodney shuffled backward giving John space to curl his legs up. He felt behind his back for the edge of the bed. "That's as far as I can go. And don't push - my butt's doing a re-enactment of that bit in the Italian job."

"With the bus hanging over the edge of a cliff?"

"The gold bullion in one end."

"And they can’t reach it without the whole lot going over."

Rodney hummed the theme music.

"Music while you work," said John.

Hot breath tickled Rodney's groin and a warm hand clasped the top of his thigh. "Report, Colonel Sheppard!" His voice came out high and wavery. "Any hostiles?"

"Huh, er… There's some movement in the undergrowth." A pause. "Shall I check it out?"

"Yes. But proceed with extreme caution."

"'kay."

Rodney drummed his fingers on his hip, nervously. John Sheppard was about to put his mouth on Rodney's penis, his phallus, his John Thomas. Whichever word you used amounted to the same thing: oral sex, fellatio, a blow job. The hot, moist breath became the centre of Rodney's world and when he felt a tentative touch and then the coolness of moisture, he let out a gusty, full-chested groan. This seemed to be taken as encouragement and soft, wet flicks on the tip and the sides and the base of his cock elicited more trembling breaths. Then the heat was gone.

"What's wrong? John? You don't have to -"

"Stop panicking! Hair in my mouth." 

There was a cold patch on Rodney's thigh where John's hand had been.

"Have you got it?"

"Yeah. Back to work."

Strong fingers suddenly gripped the base of Rodney's cock and then there was heat and suction and slurping effects easily as liquidly descriptive as those in the video. Rodney's mouth fell open as he turned his emerging moan into a gasp that wouldn't obscure the sounds of delight from John's mouth on his cock; if he'd had volume control, this time he would have turned it up.

Rodney's hand slid off his hip and found the soft, tousled mass of John's hair. He buried his fingers in it and combed them through until he was cupping the back of John's head, just lightly, so that he could feel the back and forth as his friend moved. Rodney began to rock his hips in time with John's movement, reining in his urge to thrust hard into the blissful heat. But suddenly, tragically the heat was gone and Rodney couldn't suppress his plangent whimper.

"Sorry! My jaw's tired. It started to click."

"Oh."

"This okay?" 

Firm, rhythmic pressure wrapped round his needy cock and Rodney sighed, gratefully.

"I'll take that as a yes."

There was no longer a reason to hold back, no restraining thoughts of hurting or choking his friend. Rodney let go and thrust into John's hand, his muscles rigid. He jerked and strained, hard and fast, edging bit by bit toward a high, high peak of pleasure. And then, despite his self-evident manliness, his orgasm blossomed like an unfurling exotic flower, its petals bursting apart wider and wider in glorious rainbow colours until his mind was filled with light and joy.

oOo

Something nudged Rodney's shoulder. "You awake?"

"Nuh."

Another nudge, followed by insistent pats to his cheek. "C'mon, Rodney. You can sleep when we’ve cleaned up.”

Rodney shifted stickily and opened bleary eyes. “Huh?” Something wet tickled his nose: a washcloth. He sat up and took it. “We could’ve just showered in the morning.”

“I don’t think so, Rodney. We’d be stuck together by then.” 

John sat down on the side of the bed, his back to his friend. His shoulders were higher than they should be. Was he psyching himself up, ready to ask Rodney to leave? Was he berating himself for giving in to his impulses? Rodney began to clean himself, unsure what to say. He noticed John’s crutches, abandoned on the floor. “Did you put weight on your foot?”

“No. I hopped.” John half turned toward him. His mouth quirked up at one corner, then snapped back into tense straightness. John’s mouth, which had been around his…

“A hundred!” he blurted. “Or more. I’m extending the scale to take account of extreme mind-blowingness!”

“Mind-blowingness?” The quirky grin was back.

Rodney nodded enthusiastically and hurled the washcloth in the general direction of the bathroom. "Mind-blowing," he confirmed. "Because it was. You were. I should've said, but I guess I thought that was pretty obvious." He pulled out the ruthlessly tucked-in bedding and then hesitated. “Can I stay?”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to, if you want me to.”

“Yeah, I want you to.”

“Good. Do you want to be the spooner or the spoonee?”

“We could take turns.”

“We could, but we’d have to precisely synchronise our rotation or we’d both end up on the floor. My place next time. My bed’s much bigger.”

“Good plan.”

“So, spooner or spoonee?”

“Ee.”

Rodney held out his arm and John climbed into the bed and wriggled backward against his friend so that his ass was nestled tight against Rodney’s groin. Rodney was tired and gave a sharp mental command to any and all errant body-parts that they were tired too and should go to sleep. John snuggled himself further into Rodney’s body.

“Don’t shove me, I’m hanging off!”

“Italian Job again?”

“Nearly.” Rodney pushed back.

“Up for more action, McKay?”

“No! Just trying to stake my claim to some more territory.”

“What, my ass?”

“No. Although, now you mention it, and I know it’s still early days, but seeing as we’ve got off to a rather fine start, I was wondering whether, possibly, at some point in the future, you might want me to, er, ... you-know you?”

John’s body stiffened.

Rodney grimaced: too much, too soon.

“What, you mean....” John cleared his throat. “You’d be Hard Hat and I’d be Tool-belt?”

“Or you could be Hard Hat. Maybe.”

“No. Er, no, that’s fine. Um, I’d be cool with the role of Tool-belt.”

“Really?”

“Well, I’ve never, so I don’t know, but, yeah. Uh, I think. At some point.”

“When we’re ready.”

“Yeah, when we’re ready.”

“Which maybe won’t be that long, because I think we’ve made some pretty good in-roads into the whole gay experience tonight. We’ve set a solid foundation for future progress; established some benchmarks, not to mention some pretty damn high standards, in my not-so-humble opinion. Sheppard?”

“Hmm.”

Rodney’s enfolding arm rose and fell slowly with John’s relaxed breathing and the body pressed, back to his front, was soft and relaxed. “Goodnight, Sheppard. John.”

“‘Night, Rodney.”

oOo

The bedside light was still on; Rodney couldn’t reach to turn it off and he didn’t want to. His back had stiffened up and John had tried to turn and face him, and their combined wriggling had nearly ended with both of them on the floor. But peace and comfort had been achieved and now the golden glow encased them in its secluded warmth and the silence was only broken by John’s soft puffs of breath from sleep-slackened lips, which gently ruffled the hairs on Rodney’s chest. The entire city could have been deserted, theirs to roam in freedom, unheeding of judgement or duty or the uncertainty of the future. It was an illusion, of course, this pausing of time, this capsule of intimacy. Life moved on with each passing breath and it was possible that, after each breath, John would wake, and regret, and pull away. But for now, they were together, John’s body relaxed against Rodney’s, his head on Rodney’s chest, Rodney’s arm around his friend’s back.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190544196@N08/50487948843/in/dateposted-public/)

Would John regret what they had done? Could he, after the joy they had shared, slide back into that state of mistrust, feeling betrayed by body and mind both? Rodney would not regret it, not even if he woke in the grey morning and felt no more than friendship. Regardless of how they had reached this point, regardless of dubious consent and ambivalent feelings about their situation, he would not set aside this joining with his friend in shared pleasure, this discovery of a new way of being together that went far above and beyond their years of comradeship.

He tightened his arms around John, the scratch of the military-issue blanket above, the real, unromanticised flesh below; in places smooth, in others callused, scattered with scars and blemishes, a lived-in, hard-working body; John’s body, here in his arms. Rodney bent his head forward and laid a kiss in the thicket of John’s upstanding hair; not to set the seal on the future, but simply to mark this moment, this one special moment in time.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rodney runs a diagnostic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've embedded a little piece of art in this chapter, and I'm going to go back and do all the other chapters too, if I get time. The larger versions will still go in a separate post. I've done an extra picture for chapter one this week.

There was coffee, there were various cereals and, for those who arrived early in the morning rush, there was something which closely resembled bacon.

There was also, for Rodney, the opportunity to muse on the pleasure brought by waking to find himself held in warm, affectionate arms, and to consider how he and John might have spent the day if they didn't have to work.

"Rodney?"

"Yes? What? Sorry!"

Teyla, holding her tray, smiled down at him. "I merely wished you a good morning, Rodney, and reminded you of your combat training session this afternoon."

"Oh, right, yes. See you there." His spirits slightly dampened, he watched her walk away, followed by Ronon who grunted a farewell and nudged John's shoulder with his elbow as he passed. John spilled his coffee.

"You see, that's what you get for not exercising your caveman," said Rodney, when Ronon had gone.

"He ran with Cadman."

"Clearly not far enough. It's a good thing you've hurt your foot, or he'd have been beating on your door early this morning."

John shrugged, noncommittally.

Rodney chewed and swallowed his last piece of bacon. "Do you think they know?"

"Teyla does."

"What? Already? How?”

John stirred his mortar-like oatmeal. "Teyla knows everything."

Rodney reflected on this wisdom. "True. You don't think she'll try to talk to us about it do you?"

John looked up and raised one eyebrow.

"Well, no, of course she won't try to talk to you. Although we seem to do alright on the communication front, despite your taciturn ways. Don't we?"

"We get the gist anyways."

John returned to his breakfast and Rodney considered their communication style. Despite their totally different backgrounds, he and John had achieved a kind of semi-verbal understanding, although admittedly with most of the verbal on Rodney's side. There was a certain amount of surface antagonism, of course, characterised by the thrust and riposte of sarcastic jibes and fraternal rivalry, but that was only a small part of their friendship. Rodney regarded his cooling coffee, thoughtfully. 

From the earliest days of the expedition, no, really even before that, in those frantic weeks of preparation at the SGC, Rodney had found himself gravitating toward Sheppard. He didn’t recall seeking out the Major, but, having grabbed him in passing a few times in order to exploit his light switch capabilities, Rodney had found himself with a casually slouching satellite of varying orbit. He’d quickly realised that a flurry of vigorous finger-snapping would result in a sauntering approach accompanied by an amused smirk; but beneath that thin veneer of feigned coolness lurked a quick understanding and childlike delight which reflected Rodney’s own enthusiasm. 

But now that their friendship had progressed to the next level, or in fact, crossed over a border into a sexual relationship, would their sniping, playful, sibling-like banter be enough? Shouldn’t they be discussing how each of them felt about important ‘issues’? Did they need to compare deeply-held beliefs to ensure long-term compatibility? Could Sheppard even attempt to articulate said beliefs without Teyla to interpret his succession of grimaces and half-sentences into coherent speech? Communication was the key, and it was possible that the language they’d mutually worked out to express their friendship wouldn’t be enough. Thinking over past relationships, Rodney decided that it had really been the breakdown of communication that had doomed them all. He had considered his general demeanour and basic requests to be reasonable, mature and caring, in their own way, while his partners had made different interpretations; wildly different interpretations, resulting in various states of disbelief, progressing through shock and indignation and culminating, in every case, in a decisive and lasting removal from his presence.

“You’re doing that face again,” said John, poking at his oatmeal.

“What?”

“That face. The one where there’s all kinds of stuff going on.” He waved his spoon in vague circles. “Like bad stuff.”

“Oh.” Rodney began busying himself with the even application of a layer of butter to his toast.

“Spit it out, McKay.”

Rodney set down his knife. “I was just thinking.”

“About?”

“Relationships.”

“Oh.”

“And how little I understand about why they’ve failed in the past.”

John shrugged and ducked his head. “Can’t help you out there,” he mumbled.

“No. I know you can’t.” Rodney picked up his knife once more and began smearing the toast with jelly. "But my question is, setting aside the issue of how we've arrived in this situation, what level of commitment are we aiming to achieve? I mean, are we going for a casual, 'let's see how it goes' kind of thing or are we hoping for a long-term deal? And if we are, the question is, could either of us actually sustain such a relationship?"

John stared, his spoon in his mouth. He removed the spoon, then swallowed painfully as if the oatmeal had turned into hardcore. "That’s pretty heavy stuff, McKay. Do we have to know?"

"Know what we're aiming for? Of course. How can we meet our target if we don't know what it is?"

John’s spoon clattered against his bowl. His eyes flicked left and right at the other tables. “You don’t think it’ll work out," he mumbled. "You ‘n’ me.”

“I didn’t mean that!”

“Because if you’re not sure, that’s fine.” John’s downcast face belied his words.

“No, really.” Rodney glanced round the Mess Hall and then leant forward and gave John’s forearm a quick squeeze. “I just don’t want to make the same mistakes I’ve made in the past. This is important! We’re best friends. We work together. We can’t afford to have a bad break-up.” Rodney’s throat began to close up as if he were having an allergic reaction. He picked up the jelly portion pot and squinted at the label, but the writing was too tiny. A deep, steadying breath seemed to ease the constriction. “And we’re the front line of defence against the Wraith for our whole planet. If our relationship fails, we could take the best part of two galaxies down with us!”

“So, no pressure, then.”

“I’m serious!”

“I know.” John leant forward. “Cool it, McKay, people are looking.”

“We’re not doing anything.”

“I didn’t mean that. If people see you panicking they’ll think there’s something wrong, like the city’s about to blow up or something.”

Rodney scrubbed his hands over his face, belatedly realising he had jelly on his fingers. “You know what, I’m not even sure if it’s our potential to jeopardise the security of the entire human race that’s really worrying me.” He let his arms fall to the table and looked at John. There was a small blob of oatmeal at one corner of John’s mouth and his hair was even more startled than usual. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

John stared determinedly into his bowl. His voice was gruff as he said, “I don’t wanna hurt you either.”

“Well, maybe we could do something, then. To make sure.”

“Do something? We’re already working on that, aren’t we?" A mischievous eyebrow twitched.

“No, not physical stuff. I mean, there must be some way to find out if you’re doing a relationship right and if not, fix it before it goes critical. Like running a diagnostic.”

John stared at him blankly. Then his eyes narrowed and he raised a finger and pointed it warningly toward his friend. “I’m not doing one of those quizzes.”

“What quizzes?”

“Those things you get in magazines. Women’s magazines. Where you answer the questions, add up your scores and it tells you what you’re doing wrong.”

“That sounds ideal! But how come you’ve been reading women’s magazines?”

“I haven’t. I had this girlfriend. She was into all that stuff.”

“What happened?”

“What?”

“With the girl?”

“We broke up.”

“Because of the quiz?”

John shrugged. “I don’t know, Rodney, it was a long time ago.”

“We need to get one.”

“What?”

“A magazine. With a quiz. In fact, we’ll need a few so that we can generate a wide dataset.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. You want this to work, don’t you?”

“Yeah, of course. If, you know, if this is how we are now. How we stay.”

“That goes without saying. But let’s face it, Sheppard, we’re both pretty clueless about how you’re supposed to ‘do’ relationships.”

“Yeah…”

“There you are then. Where can we get some women’s magazines?”

oOo

The door chime sounded and John entered before it had faded, the uneven jab of crutches and hunched shoulders indicative of frayed temper, even before he flung a stack of dog-eared magazines across Rodney's bed.

"You got some. Where from?"

"The rec room," snapped John, letting the crutches fall and kicking off his boots roughly, so that they skittered beneath the bed.

"And? Why the boot-flinging bad mood?"

John flopped down full-length on the bed. "Because a bunch of off-duty Marines came in and caught me juggling Girls' World and Fashion Frenzy. I said I was getting them for Teyla and now everyone’ll think I’m her tame lap-dog.”

“Whereas actually you’re my tame lap-dog.”

“I don’t think I’d fit in your lap.”

“Would you like to try?”

“Maybe.”

Rodney was tempted to find out exactly how much John Sheppard his lap could hold, but decided to delay that particular pleasure. “See what you can find. I’ve just got to finish up a couple of things.” 

He spun his chair to face his laptop and his fingers began a flurry of tapping as his mind sorted through an intricate tangle of code, while simultaneously marvelling over the stupidity of minions past and present. It had taken him most of the day to track the problem to its source and he wasn't happy that the whole sorry mess was now impinging on his evening's activities; those responsible would suffer for their transgressions.

Rodney worked until he'd reduced the snarling code to purring complaisance and then sat back, The room was silent and, for a split second, he wondered if he’d slipped into his work so deeply that hours had passed and John had gone. But no. When he turned round John was sitting cross-legged on the bed, head bent over the magazine in his lap, a faint line between his brows.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190544196@N08/50519480907/in/dateposted-public/)

“Found anything good?”

John looked up, startled. “Huh. No. Er, not really.”

Rodney reached forward and twitched the magazine out of John’s relaxed grip.

“Hey!”

“‘If I had known the risks before getting breast implants, I one hundred percent would have said no.’ Ew. With pictures! And again I say, ‘Ew!’ Why are you reading this, Sheppard?” 

John shrugged. “I dunno. I just got drawn in, I guess.”

Rodney joined John on the bed, his eyes flicking over the text and his lip curling at the images. Having been fully and graphically informed about the dangers and side-effects of breast implants he began searching for relationship advice. His eye was immediately caught by a colourful article which described how to flatter your figure with bias-cut drapery. He read to the end, picking up several useful tips, and then shook himself hard to loosen the fish-hook grip the punchy prose and big-sister tone had gained on his attention. Rodney looked up to find his friend once more engrossed. “What’ve you got there?”

John held onto his magazine and turned away. “Just wanna finish this.”

“What is it? What are you reading?” Rodney shuffled over the bed and looked over John’s shoulder. “‘Abducted by aliens: Five women share their stories’. Oh, please! As if most aliens could be bothered.”

“No, I reckon some of these are true. This one sounds like an Asgard.”

“Yes, well, we know plenty about that kind of thing!” Rodney confiscated John’s reading material again. “It’s human relationships we need to know about! Look, here’s something. ‘How healthy is my relationship?’ You do that one.” He snatched up another magazine. “‘Couples Compatibility Quiz.’ I’ll do that.”

Rodney folded his legs beneath him and flicked through to the right page. Then he paused, occupied by a flashback to his college days. One vacation, he’d come home to find his sister had grown into that young teenage phase which seemed to involve lots of giggling and secretiveness in her bedroom. She and her friends would have cozy sleepovers involving marshmallows, hot chocolate and magazines about boys and hairstyles. He recalled feeling a strange wistful envy. But now he had his own boyfriend, complete with crazy hairstyle and maybe, at some point, he could organise some hot chocolate and marshmallows.

He began the quiz. 

_‘As a couple, would you say that you share a common vision for your future?’_ he read. _Common vision? Staying alive pretty much sums it up. Finding ZPMs would be great and maybe a weapon or something. I think Sheppard would agree with that, so D, ‘Yes, we frequently talk about our future goals together.’_

_Question Two. ‘If someone asked you how compatible you were as a couple, what would you say?’ Hang on, I thought you were supposed to be telling me that? What kind of rubbish is this?_ He looked up at John, who was circling an answer, his hair falling forward over his face, the tip of his tongue just visible between his lips. Rodney shrugged. _D again. ‘We’re on the same page about the things that are most important to us’. Like staying alive. And so on._

John snorted.

“What?”

“I’ve got ‘Does your partner tell you what to wear?’”

“I’d quite like it if you wore nothing.”

John sniggered. “I don’t think that counts.”

_Question Three. ‘How do your political views match those of your partner?’ Political views? We both hate the Wraith and the IOA, so score another D for that._ Rodney gave a pleased little hum.

_‘When it comes to religion, are there any points of contention?’ No to Wraith-worshipping. And Ancient-worshipping for that matter, the bunch of useless… Score another D._

“I’m stuck,” announced John.

“On?”

“When I’m with my partner, I feel, A, Elated and excited, B, Comfortable and content, C, Blasé and bored or D, Aggravated and annoyed.”

“I’m not boring.”

“No, but all of the others apply.”

“I make you feel comfortable and content?”

“Well, yeah.”

“And elated and excited?”

John shrugged, blushing. “Uh-huh.”

“Oh. Well. Yes, I mean the aggravated and annoyed are a given, of course, but I think that's a fair balance. You'll just have to pick one.”

"I'll go with B and see how it comes out."

Rodney continued with his quiz, deciding that he and John had plenty of shared interests and pastimes, (superheroes, chess, blowing things up etc), and that, though financial matters were irrelevant when you lived in the City of the Ancients, they were both owed such large sums of danger money that they need never be an issue. 

_‘As a couple, would you say that you regularly share a laugh together?’_ Rodney didn’t bother reading all the options, circling the D boldly.

_‘During the holiday season, how easy is it for you to decide whose family to spend Christmas with?’_ “Hmm.” Rodney sucked the end of his pen. “Hey, Sheppard!”

“Huh, yeah?”

“What’re we doing for Christmas this year?”

“What?”

“Christmas? My folks or yours?”

“Dunno. What did we do last year?”

“We were stuck in an alien prison.”

“Oh, yeah. The year before?”

“Um. Oh yes, I was dealing with a catastrophic power failure and you were in the infirmary.”

John shrugged. “I don't care where we go; let’s just aim to not do any of those.”

_I’m putting D_ , Rodney told himself. _Final question. ‘When it comes to talking about raising a family, how similar are your ideas?’ Kids. Ew. Although...._ It occurred to Rodney that a child of John's might not be so obnoxious as your general, run-of-the-mill brat. He tried to imagine himself parenting a mini-Sheppard. Or a mini-me, he thought doubtfully. _Or a mini girl Sheppard. Or a Rodney-ette._ They'd undoubtedly be superior children in every way. He'd go so far as to say the universe shouldn't be denied such high quality specimens. Of course there was the fact that he and his prospective co-parent were both male, but he was sure he could find some Ancient cloning, gene-splicing machine that could wriggle its way around that little stumbling block.

“Sheppard!”

“What?”

“D’you want kids?”

John looked up, blankly. Expressions flitted across his face like clouds on a blustery day. A frown, a lift, a darkening, a lightening. “Maybe.” His expression settled briefly on anxious, but then lightened. “Cloning or something?”

“My thoughts precisely." _Check the D box. Now for our glowing compatibility report. Mostly Ds. Hmm. 'You have similar beliefs and values,' blah, blah, blah, 'strong and secure relationship'. Okay, so far so good. 'Invest in maintaining connection, communication and compassion to keep your relationship healthy.' I knew that already. But how do I invest? Talk to a broker?_

He looked up. John was chewing the end of his pen, thoughtfully.

“What did you get?”

“Hang on.”

“Haven’t you finished yet?”

“Just wait.” John’s eyes ran down the page, his pen tapping. He held up the magazine and squinted at it, and then frowned.

“What? Is our relationship unhealthy? John?”

“Oh. No, that’s fine. Healthy. Whatever. This is ‘Discover your perfect partner’.”

“Oh, really? What did it come out as? Pioneering intellectual? Potential Nobel prize winner? Intergalactic supergenius?”

“Stud muffin,” said John absently, checking his scores.

“Stud muffin?"

John nodded. 'I've tried it a few times and I always get stud muffin."

"Oh. Well, speaking as an enigmatic mélange of manly stoicism and deeply buried softer feelings, perhaps that's an apt enough descriptor. Let me try.” Snapping fingers brought the magazine skittering across the bed. “You’ve lost the place! Oh, here it is… Right.”

Rodney whizzed his way down the quiz in a flurry of checks. “And last, ‘What is your self esteem like?’ Um, ah here we are. ‘Great, because I know I’m smarter than everyone else.’ Now to total up. Let me see, let me see… oh.”

“What?”

“I get stud muffin too.”

“At least we match.”

“I suppose. I’m not sure that that’s the kind of information I was after when I suggested this idea, though.”

“Maybe we could just watch a movie. Or something else.”

“No, I’m determined to get some useful results. Let’s do this one together. ‘What type of couple are you?’”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Question one, ‘How long have you and your partner been together?’”

“Together together, or just together?”

“Together together. So, three months or less. Question two. ‘Where did you meet?’”

“Is there an option for Ancient outpost?”

“No.” Rodney’s pen hovered about the page and he stared into his memories. “Think about where we are in the solar system.”

John smiled. “Your first words to me. Mind, you’re lucky I knew which way was up. I’d just been told that there were aliens and then found out that I was one of them, or at least partly. I was in shock.”

“You hid it well. But I suppose we were lucky the chair didn’t interpret your mental upheaval as an order to destroy all life on Earth.” He sighed, smiling. “Ah, happy days!” His eyes fell and he circled an answer. “At work. Next. ‘How do you settle an argument with your S.O.?”

“Science Officer?”

“Significant Other.”

“Oh. What are the options?”

“So, we’ve got A, ‘Have a screaming match, then make up after several days of not talking.’”

“Check,” agreed John, nodding.

“B, ‘We resolve our fights quickly then profess our love for one another.”

“That too, but not the love thing.”

“No, we'd make up and then you’d slap me on the back of the head.”

“You’d do it back.”

“That’s the same thing as professing love in my book. Anyways, C, ‘We don’t sweat the small stuff and settle our arguments through compromise.’”

“Kinda.” John grimaced.

“Hmm, it’s more a case of ‘Work together or die’.”

“What’s D?”

“We don’t argue at all.”

“Ha.”

“Precisely. I’m putting C.” Rodney circled the answer and moved on to the next question. “Aha! Pick a Valentine’s Day gift you’d most like to give/receive!”

John bounced upright and peered over Rodney’s shoulder. “Jewelry. Nah.”

“A bouquet of red roses? Not with my allergies, thank you!”

“Hey, how about some sexy lingerie and a night of passion?” John shoved Rodney suggestively and breathed hotly in his ear.

"Ew, Sheppard! Sexy lingerie? For me or you?”

“I think we can skip the lingerie and just get with the passion.”

“No, look we could have ‘A night at the movies’.”

“Movie followed by passion.”

“You can’t have two options.”

John shrugged. “Movie, then.”

“Oh. Are you sure?”

“It’s just a quiz, McKay. We can have both really."

“Alright then. Next. ‘How often do you and your S.O. text during the course of the day?’ For text, read comms.”

“Depends if we’re on a mission. Every half hour if we split up.”

“I’m putting ‘I like to check in with them and see how their day is going.’”

“Yeah.” John struck an even more nonchalant pose. “‘Oh, just the usual. Gossiped by the water cooler, sent out for Starbucks, and now I’m under heavy fire from a pack of Wraith! How’s your day going?’”

“Huh! Next question. Oh, this is great! ‘Choose a pet name you’d like to be called.’”

“Let me see!”

“Oh, God, Sheppard, please don’t ever call me Baby.”

“Sure thing, Babes.”

“Right, for that, you’re ‘Schmoopie’! My little Schmoopie-doopie!”

“You know, I’d settle for you calling me John more often.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, you know, if we’re in bed naked together, calling me Sheppard seems a bit distant.”

“It’s just a habit. John.”

“That’s better. And I’ll try not to call you McKay when we’re off duty and do my best not to refer to you as Pumpkin when we’re working. Or Sugarlips.”

“I appreciate that, Colonel Honey-bun. Next question. Oh, this is going to take some serious thought.”

“‘What is the sexiest part of your partner’s body?’" John read. "Eyes, lips, arms, chest, ‘private parts’. Why don’t they have ass?"

“That comes under privates.”

“No, it doesn’t. Your meat and two veg are private, not your ass.”

“Mine is private.”

“Not from me.”

“No.”

“So?”

“So, what?”

“What’s your answer?”

Rodney narrowed his eyes and let his gaze wander over John’s body. “Hmm… tricky. What I really need is ‘all of the above’. But I guess I’ll go with lips.”

“Really?”

“Mm.” Rodney placed a hand on John’s cheek, slid it round the back of his neck and drew him closer, studying the curved fullness of his lower lip. Their mouths met and moved against each other, tongues lazily turning and tasting. “Mm.” Rodney sat back. “Definitely lips.”

John touched his mouth, and huffed a soft laugh.

They finished the quiz and Rodney quickly collated the results, which fell comfortably within the range described as ‘The Too Adorable Couple’. _‘You guys are the cutest couple we’ve ever seen. You are truly in love and don’t care about living in your little bubble of happiness. You sincerely love each other and we all envy you for it.’_

“What does it say?”

He could read it out in a sneering, sarcastic way; it wasn’t as if he hadn’t had the practice. _‘Truly in love’_. It was just a stupid magazine, right? It couldn’t really work that out from just a few silly questions. But, the L word. Neither of them had said it. And if John felt it, maybe he wasn’t admitting it, even to himself. Maybe he was just treating it like the nice little buzz you get from a few shots of hard liquor - something that was pleasant, but not really him. Love. He couldn’t say that and sneer.

“McKay!”

“You’re supposed to be calling me Rodney.”

“Rodney, then. What’s it say?”

“It says that we are the ‘Too Adorable Couple.’ The cutest couple ever seen.” He managed a sneer. “Look, John, I’m not sure we’re learning anything here. About how to make sure things work. Maybe we just need to work on our communication skills.”

“Maybe we could take a break and work on our physical skills?” John wiggled his eyebrows and stretched his arms above his head. “We’ve got a lot to catch up on.”

“No, look, let’s try this. ‘Twenty one fun questions to ask your partner.’”

“That would mean talking about stuff.”

“You’ve already been talking about stuff.”

“No, I’ve just been checking boxes and finding out I like stud muffins.”

“Stud muffins!” said Rodney, scornfully. “Come on, let’s do these. And then if we don’t find anything good, we’ll embark on an intense programme of physical training.”

“You won’t be scoring, will you?”

“No, but I’ll expect pretty high standards.”

“I’ll endeavor to rise to the challenge.”

“I’m sure you’ll rise beautifully. Here.” Rodney passed the magazine over. “Pick one to ask me.”

John scanned the list, his mobile eyebrows expressing various stages of puzzlement, glee and horror. “Here’s a good one. ‘Have you ever obsessed over anything? (toys, movies, projects, people, problems)’.”

“Obsessed? I don’t appreciate the negative connotations of that word. If you want to get anything done efficiently and effectively, you have to take a structured, methodical approach and I don’t see why that’s labelled as ‘obsessing’. Take toys and movies. If you’re going to watch Star Wars, you need to watch all of them several times when they’re still in the cinemas, and then if you want the full, immersive experience, in my humble opinion, yes, all of the action figures are necessary and the various starships and so on. And, though some might say the model Death Star is far too expensive for any child’s birthday, they should offset that expense against the years of mental anguish incurred if such a gift is substituted for an unwanted item or items, to wit: clothes.” 

Rodney took another very deep breath, his chest tight with stored-up resentment. “Further, if scientists such as myself didn’t develop what is crudely labelled as an ‘obsessive personality’, then where would all these woolly-minded slobs be? I ask you? They’d be dead in any number of horrifying ways, because nobody was meticulous, thorough, even, dare I say it, obsessed enough, to find ever more ingeniously innovative ways to save their asses!”

John remained still and expressionless, a prey animal hoping he'd merge into the mixed blanket and magazine bedding. “That’s a yes, then.”

“You know it is!”

“Am I a woolly-minded slob?”

“No! Not you. Give it to me.” Rodney held out his hand. He scanned the list, bitterness stirring in his gut as he thought of the insults he’d had to endure over the years. “This sounds interesting. ‘If every person you killed made you live another ten years, how many people would you kill?’”

John’s eyes hardened. “Not sure I want to go there, McKay.”

“Yeah, but, come on, if Wraith were included in ‘people’...”

John stared at him, saying nothing.

“Come on, John, we’re supposed to be communicating.”

“Not about that stuff.”

John turned his body away so that Rodney could only see the side of his face and one elbow tucking his arm in tight against his body.

“You never talked to Nancy about things like that. Did you?”

John tensed, as if about to move. How far to push?

“John?”

“I couldn’t, could I? I couldn’t tell her anything. It was classified!”

“Is that where your marriage went wrong?”

John shrugged.

“Because there’s nothing you have to hide from me. We’re in it together.”

“Not always.”

“No, but if I’m not with you, you’d have Ronon, or Teyla, or someone watching your six.”

“Not always.”

“No. Not always." He remembered the scene, grainy with interference; John, tied to a chair, the gloating Genii, the screams as his friend's life was torn from his chest. And before that, Kolya's sneering face close to his, the burning pain in his arm and John, out there somewhere, a lethal shadow in the dark. "You were on your own for a long time. When Kolya was here. You never really talked about that.”

“Why would I talk about it?”

“Oh, maybe because it’s still obviously really traumatic for you?”

John spun round and glared. “Why wouldn’t it be? Why shouldn’t it be? Just cos I can track and lay in wait and kill people like they’re animals, doesn’t mean it’s easy.” Sweat had broken out on John’s forehead and his breath came quick and harsh. “Some of them were just kids.”

“You had no choice.”

“I know.”

“We saved Atlantis. Together.”

“I know.”

“There aren’t any right answers sometimes. Any easy ways.”

“I’m not expecting it to be easy. Just liveable with.”

“Maybe I can help.” Rodney reached out and touched John’s shoulder, with his fingertips. Then he curled his hand over the tense muscles and drew John toward him. Ignoring the crumpling of magazines beneath his knees, he shuffled closer and put his other arm around John’s back. He held his friend close and felt the rigid muscles slowly relax and the warmth of John’s arms close behind him. They held each other, with no words, no kisses, just the calm acceptance of friends who know each other’s horrors and are simply present to acknowledge them.

Then their arms released and they sat down amid the nest of blankets and paper. Rodney shuffled round so that his shoulder leant against John’s.

“Better?”

“Yeah.”

“This communication stuff’s hard work.”

“Midnight snacks?”

“Let’s do a few more, then raid the kitchens. Look, here’s a great one! ‘If we were on a TV show, do you think the viewers would ship us?’”

“Ship?”

Rodney shrugged. “Relationship? Not that that’s a verb, but since when have such considerations ever bothered the younger generation.”

“Chillax, Grandpa!”

“Nice. Very nice, John." Rodney lightly swatted the back of John's head. "So, ‘ship’?”

“On a TV show…” John rubbed his stubbly chin. “You’d be the mad genius professor.”

“Which I am, saving the mad. And you’d be the dashing romantic hero, always saving the day.”

“Really? Dashing?”

“How can you not know this? I mean, yes, you’re actually a total goof-ball math-nerd, but with your stunning good looks and action-man attributes, you’re definitely the romantic hero.”

“Okay. So, would they ‘ship’ us?”

“Totally.”

John didn’t look convinced.

“Come and see this.” Rodney grabbed John’s hand and dragged him off the bed and into the bathroom, where there was a full-length mirror next to the shower. “Kiss me,” he ordered, one eye on the mirror to make sure they were ‘in frame’.

John stepped forward and slid his arms round Rodney’s waist. Rodney let his hands climb up the lean, firmness of John’s back. The kiss was soft and gentle, but worked its inevitable way toward hot and heavy as passion took control. Rodney pulled back. “Look.” He jerked his head toward the mirror. They regarded their entwined forms.

“Damn, we look hot,” said John.

Rodney nodded eagerly. “We do, don’t we?”

"That's a yes then."

"They'd ship us like UPS."

"Like FedEx."

"Precisely. Come on, let's do a couple more, then snack time."

Once more cross-legged on the bed, Rodney read, "Would you have a superhero themed wedding?”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“Why are they even asking?”

Then John read, “Have you experienced a culture other than your own? What was the most interesting part of this experience?”

“Hmm, now let me see. Where to start?”

“The Wraith?”

“And what has been the most interesting part of your experience with our Wraithy friends, Colonel Sheppard?”

“Oh, maybe getting my life sucked out of me and then put back, because that was definitely one for show and tell.”

“For me, the stunner to the face was a decided highlight!”

“Or, for your true culture-vulture, how about a Queen digging round in your head?”

"Or being trapped in a culling bay with stringy bits growing round you. Yuk. Right, snack time." A question caught Rodney's eye. "Ooh, this one’s not so far-fetched in light of our recent experience. ‘If you woke up tomorrow as the opposite sex, what would be the top three things you’d do?’”

John blew a long, relieved breath through flapping lips. “Yeah, we dodged a bullet there.”

“Not that it wouldn’t have been entertaining for a while.”

“Well, yeah, I mean! So much to play with.”

“But I’m happy with what I’ve got.”

“To play with?”

“Yes.” Rodney looked down at the page, plucked at it idly, then ran a nail toward the corner making it curl up. “If you could choose to wake up tomorrow back to normal, would you?”

“Is that on the list?”

“You know it’s not.”

“Well I can’t just choose, can I?”

“But if you could?”

“I don’t know, Rodney.” John’s shoulders hunched forward and his lips pressed into thinness. “I guess I’d have to.”

“Change back? Really?”

“Wouldn’t it be the right thing to do?”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“That’s not an answer, John. See, I’ve been thinking.”

“When do you ever stop?”

“Never. But, look, it’s like all those alternate universes out there. In all that multitude of variations, there must be somewhere we’re together, so why not here? And why shouldn’t we think of it as an alternate, but equally valid way for us to be?”

“I dunno, Rodney, I think you’d go mad thinking of all the stuff we could be doing. Or we are doing in other realities. It’s not us.”

“No, this is us! As we are right now. Would you give that up?”

“If we changed back we wouldn’t miss it and we’d be doing the right thing.”

“Why, what makes it right?”

“I don’t know! I’m not arguing philosophy with you, I can only go with what my gut tells me.”

“You must have indigestion, then. Or is it that over-active self-sacrifice circuit you have that just won’t allow you a chance at happiness”

John’s face set rigid. “I think I’d better go. It’s late.” He got up. Magazines landed on the floor with papery slaps.

“No, John, don’t. Please.”

“I don’t want to argue with you.”

“I don’t want to argue either.” Rodney looked down at his hands, which had tortured his magazine into a crumpled wreck. He was supposed to be giving this his best shot, making it something that would last. It hadn’t even lasted the night. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve said that.”

“It’s okay.” John ran a hand through his hair. “Look, it really is late. We could both do with some sleep.”

“Here?”

“I don’t know, McKay.”

“We can sleep.”

John shook his head. “I think maybe I need some space. Just to think stuff through.”

“Wait, John. I - I, uh…”

“What?”

“I just, really want this to work. Us. I want us to give it our best shot.”

“I know. You said that.”

“Yes, but, it’s because - I mean the reason why… It’s because I -”

There was a chirping from John’s earpiece, which John acknowledged with a curt, “Copy that, Chuck.” 

And a moment later, Chuck’s voice was in Rodney’s ear. “Dr McKay, Dr Weir needs you in the Gateroom, please.”

Mechanical words rose to his lips. “On my way.”

_Because I love you. I love you, John Sheppard._ Why hadn't he said it? Just said it right out loud to John's face. He picked up John’s crutches for him and followed him to the door. “Did he tell you what it was about?”

“No.”

The Gateroom was quiet and dimly lit for the night shift, the great jagged window behind the Gate utterly black. Their echoing steps rose hollowly to the lofty ceiling.

Elizabeth was standing at the foot of the staircase. The Gate was inactive, but next to her were two figures, one who Rodney vaguely remembered seeing ascend when John had been trapped in the time dilation field, and the other, the gangling teenage form of Hedda. Rodney had a sudden urge to grab John’s hand and run, or even just to hold his hand, to lay claim to him, here in the heart of Atlantis, in front of Elizabeth.

Elizabeth turned around. “Visitors for you, John, Rodney.”

“Teer.” John greeted the robed, dark-haired woman.

She smiled calmly back at him. “John. It is good to see you again."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading! I'll post the concluding chapter next week. Comments and kudos are very welcome!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hedda and Teer have arrived on Atlantis and John and Rodney's new relationship is forced into the open.

Hedda shuffled nervously. Rodney narrowed his eyes at her attire; a t-shirt with the slogan ‘Black lives matter’, a sash proclaiming ‘Votes for Women’ and a baseball cap branded ‘#metoo’.

“Hedda,” John greeted the top of the baseball cap. She looked up and grimaced from beneath the peak.

“Hello, John. Hey, Rodney.”

Elizabeth’s expectant smile passed between her visitors and her command staff. And back again. “So... not that it isn’t nice to see you both, but would anyone like to tell me what this is all about?”

“It is a matter of a personal nature,” replied Teer. “Perhaps we could go somewhere more private?” 

The security team maintained their steady appraisal, but the faces peering over the railing of the control level retreated hurriedly.

“Yes, of course.” Elizabeth looked at John, leaning on his crutches. “We’ll find somewhere on this level.”

“You're hurt. Let me heal you,” offered Hedda.

“No.” John’s answer was sharp. “No. Thanks, Hedda, but I’ll manage.”

Hedda flushed and looked down at her sash, tugging at it so that the ‘women’ disappeared around her back. “Healing was always my gift, John,” she said softly. “You let me heal you before, when you fought the beast for us.”

There was an awkward silence.

John studied the floor. Elizabeth raised questioning eyebrows at Rodney, but the explanation was stuck in his throat, along with his protests against the approaching scene.

“John?” Elizabeth prompted.

The crutches shifted, a sharp breath huffed and a muscle in John’s jaw twitched. He wanted to run too, Rodney realised. He wanted to run and, knowing John, he wanted an enemy to fight; a simple, deadly, undisputable threat that could be blasted out of existence by the fury of his P90.

Teer approached him and placed a hand gently on his arm. “Hedda will not do anything without your permission, John.”

His eyes darted to hers, with a glaring look of hurt.

“I think I’m missing something here.” Elizabeth’s face retained a diplomatic smile, but her voice was tinged with concern.

“Consent.” Rodney’s word echoed around the room, harshly sibilant. “That’s what was missing for us.”

Hedda’s face was hidden again beneath the peak of her cap. A small, hiccuping sob made the cap jerk and she stumbled forward to kneel at John’s feet. “Please. Please, John, allow me to help you. I’m asking for your consent. Your permission. Please?” She looked up. Her cheeks were wet.

He paused, but then gave a sharp nod.

Hedda placed her hands around John’s injured foot, her head bent once more, so that her hair fell forward. He stiffened, and then relaxed and set his foot on the floor, slowly letting it take his weight. “Thanks.”

“You're very welcome, John.” Hedda stood up.

“Shall we?” Elizabeth gestured toward the stairs.

John left his crutches leaning against the wall. Rodney looked at them. They were no longer needed; an unwanted prop. He swallowed painfully and followed the subdued party up the stairs to the meeting room.

They all sat down. Like civilised people. Rodney knew he was doing the ‘bad things’ face. John wouldn’t meet his eye and took a chair across the table.

Teer spoke. “Hedda came to me for advice. You know that she was instrumental in renewing both John’s and Dr McKay’s lives recently?”

“Yes, and I’m glad I have a chance to thank you in person,” said Elizabeth.

Hedda’s cheeks were red. She gave Elizabeth a small smile. “I came to apologise.”

“I don’t understand. Is there a problem?” Elizabeth asked.

Hot denial came surging up from Rodney’s stomach but then died on his lips as his eyes met John’s. And he saw desire and friendship, but he also saw hurt, confusion and shame. He choked, then cleared his throat. There was no water on the table.

“Are you alright, Rodney?”

“Yes, Elizabeth, I’m fine. That is...” He felt his neck and shoulders tense painfully, his jaw lift with determination. “No. No, we’re not fine. We’re acting under an alien influence and have been since we were ascended.”

Elizabeth looked at John, who was fiddling with his fingernails and chewing his lip. “John? What’s this about?”

“Look, I’m sorry!” Hedda burst out. “I’ve been back to your planet; in fact, I’ve been to Earth up and down the timeline and the things I’ve seen... I didn’t realise…” She broke off and looked at Teer, who nodded gently. Hedda took a deep breath. “You see, where I grew up, in the cloister? Everyone’s opinion was respected, everyone was listened to, all of us equal and valid. We lived joyfully and loved… who we wanted. Out there -” She waved a hand at the Gate. “Out there, there’s so much wrong, so much injustice; people are judged and shamed and hurt because of who they are, what they look like, how they live.” She swiped tears away from her eyes, two impatient strokes. “I learned a lot. I Iearned why sometimes people on your world can’t let themselves love without fear. And I learned about consent.” She looked Rodney in the eyes and held his gaze for a few long seconds, then held John’s eyes too. He didn’t look away. “I wanted to help and I saw the depth of your friendship. But you were still so very lonely and I thought - I thought, ‘Hey, why not?’ I should’ve asked. I’m really sorry.”

Lonely; yes, she was right, he’d been lonely. Friends and team-mates wasn’t enough; not at night, alone in the darkness, when it counted.

“Wait a minute, what exactly did you do?” Elizabeth asked.

“I made John and Rodney feel things they wouldn’t have felt. I opened their minds. To each other.”

"So, they… what?"

Rodney closed his eyes. 

Teer explained. “Part of the journey toward ascension involves recognising the true universality of love in its many forms. Most people live their lives behind barriers that they construct in order to fit into their culture and society; barriers that can prevent their seeing and experiencing love between their own inner self and another’s, regardless of gender or appearance, race or culture. But true love knows no barriers if the heart is open and it is the full knowledge of self that leads to happiness and ultimately to ascension. Hedda swept aside some of those barriers.”

“Meaning?” prompted Elizabeth.

“Meaning we became lovers! Sexual partners! We engaged in acts deemed inappropriate by those in authority! Is that clear now?” 

“Rodney.” John looked at him from beneath lowered brows. His face was pale, his mouth set into that thin, mission-ready line. He turned to Hedda. “You should’ve asked.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I just wanted to help."

“I see.” Elizabeth steepled her fingers and shifted in her chair. She looked at John, whose face was still tight and closed-off. She looked at Rodney who held her gaze for a moment, seeing compassion and concern in her eyes. “So, what happens now?”

“With John and Rodney’s full consent,” said Teer, “I will return their minds to their former state.”

"You can do that? Safely?"

"I can."

“Then I think that would be best,” said Elizabeth. “Do you agree, John? Rodney?”

Those three crucial words hung before him: 'Do you agree?' The three words that made the decision theirs, that gave them the choice of how their lives would be after this small point in time. Rodney read the contract, the small print, the risks and benefits, and he felt the full weight of responsibility. 

Sometimes it was easier to have no choice, to let others make the decisions; easier to have someone to blame rather than take control of your own life. But, in the cold, hard reality of those three words, he knew what his answer must be. Because even if John loved him, it would be a tainted love, a conflicted, doubting love that questioned itself constantly, and that, sooner or later, second-guessed itself out of existence. Rodney’s mind and heart wanted to cling to what they had, this new, precious connection, no matter how it had come about. But he couldn’t, because he loved his friend. And that meant giving John back himself. He’d let it go, so that he could look John in the eye and see uncomplicated friendship and that firmness of purpose unclouded by uncertainty.

“Yes,” he said.

John nodded. “Yeah.”

“You are sure?” Teer asked.

“You can have some time, if you need it,” Elizabeth offered.

John shook his head. “It wasn’t us,” he rasped. “It wasn’t real.”

Rodney swallowed, his throat so tight he felt, and almost wished it would close completely. “It wasn’t real,” he echoed, a strangled whisper of despair.

Then there was light; glowing white light, surrounding him in ribbons which lifted him and carried him on a tide, away from confusion and doubt until he drifted in the simplicity of mere existence.

The tide ebbed. 

He blinked and he was in the meeting room with Elizabeth and John. John, who was his friend and nothing more.

“Back to your usual selves?” asked Elizabeth.

“Think so,” said John.

Rodney looked at his friend’s face; his silly hair, his pointy ears, his puzzled expression. And his black t-shirt, thank God. Rodney checked himself for the presence of clothes, finding all as it should be.

“Did we...?” He spiralled one hand toward the ceiling.

“Ascend?” No,” said Elizabeth. “Not as far as I could tell. It was very bright.”

“Yeah, they should give out shades,” said John, running a hand through his hair. “And earth wires. My hair feels crackly.”

“Rodney? Are you alright?” 

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine. All systems functioning.” He tried to smile, but lost the impulse before his lips could respond. “Where did they go? Hedda and Teer? I didn’t see.”

“Back through the Gate, bypassing the whole dialling routine,” replied Elizabeth. “They probably didn’t even need to do that, really.”

“No, but it makes a better dramatic exit than disappearing through the ceiling, I suppose.”

“Well,” said Elizabeth. “I think I’ll put the whole thing down as alien influence in my report. And I won’t ask you to divulge any… details. I hope you can both just move on. With no ill-feeling?”

“Yeah. Aliens made us do it,” said John.

“Water under the bridge,” agreed Rodney.

“Maybe you should talk to -.”

“No.” John’s reply was adamant.

Elizabeth made a ‘We’ll see’ face, but didn’t pursue the matter. She pushed back her chair. “I’m going to bed. And you should too. Separately. Sorry. I mean, I expect you’re tired after…” She smirked. “Just get some sleep, both of you.” She left, hurriedly.

Rodney stared at his hands on the table. The legs of John’s chair scraped.

“You coming, McKay?” 

“Yes.” He followed John out of the meeting room and they stood at the head of the stairs, regarding the silent Gate.

“So…” John shifted from foot to foot, his hands in his pockets.

“So?”

“I guess, uh... “ He trailed away and shrugged. “I’m not sure what to say.”

Rodney sighed, heavily. “I don’t think there’s a lot you can say. Just another episode of Pegasus Galaxy fun and games.”

“Yeah.” John’s eyes met Rodney’s, guarded beneath lowered brows. “We’re good, though, right?”

“Yes. We’re good. Fine. All that kind of thing.”

“Okay. Good. Well, I’m going to…” He shuffled toward the stairs.

“Oh, yes. Goodnight. I’ll just check on…” Rodney waved vaguely at the Control Level.

“Don't work too late.”

“I won’t.”

Rodney turned his back. John’s footsteps faded away down the stairs and across the floor of the Gate room and Rodney listened until he couldn’t hear them anymore. Then he crossed the control level, ignoring the Gate techs, and wandered up the stairs, wanting to move and not caring where he ended up. 

As he walked he searched within his mind, reaching for the space where something might be found; he met a dead end and felt only vague, formless regret, before even that feeling drifted away. And then he was tired and he returned to his quarters, alone, to find the bed rumpled and scattered with magazines, their harsh bright colours and false optimism glaring and offensive. He threw them on the floor and his clothes on top of them and got into bed.

The bed smelt of John, and he felt nothing.

oOo

“I still don’t understand,” said Rodney, pushing his bacon-substitute around his plate.

“None of us do, Rodney,” replied Carson, with a disappointed air. “I’m sure the kitchen staff tried their best, though.”

“What?”

“Well, the animals were as like to pigs as anything we’ve come across, but it’s just not… bacony. Maybe it’s something to do with the curing process.”

“I’m not talking about the latest batch of bacon, Carson!”

“Oh. Sorry, Rodney. What were you talking about, then?”

“The whole, you know... The thing between me and Sheppard.”

“Oh, that. What is it you don’t understand?”

Rodney put down his fork. “I don’t understand any of it. It makes no logical sense. I mean, if it was a math problem, even if I couldn’t find the solution, I’d know there was one. I’d just have to keep working away at it. But this... this woolly, touchy-feely, nature versus nurture, find your inner self, bunch of mumbo-jumbo - I just don’t know what to do with it!”

Carson shook his head. “None of us truly understand the workings of the human heart, Rodney.”

“Well, we should! We should understand it, and it should be set out in clear black and white in a properly indexed and referenced manual. Then we’d all know where we stood!”

The doctor smiled and sipped his tea. “You probably just need some time. To process the whole thing.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do. Process. But with no coherent data to input, how am I going to get a clear result?”

“You’re not a machine.”

“Maybe it’d be easier if I was.”

“Rodney.” The rebuke was gentle, and concern was clear in Carson’s eyes. “Let me help. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“You’re not going to go all psycho-whatsit on me now, are you?”

“No. I think you just need someone to listen.”

“Hmm. Maybe.” He prodded the unsatisfactory bacon, again.

“Rodney, talk.”

“Okay, so I’m confused. I still don’t really understand what she did in the first place- “

“Hedda.”

“Yes, of course Hedda. And if I don’t understand the first process, how can I make sense of the reverse? I mean, how am I supposed to view my sexuality now? Is it some kind of sliding scale? I keep picturing a radio with the frequency set to ‘Gay FM’. Is that what she did? Just tune us into a different station? And now we’ve been retuned to good old Het-radio, home of manly marches and back-slapping banter?”

“You don’t still have… feelings, do you, Rodney?”

“No. I don’t think so. Look, obviously my mind’s a pretty complex place, but normally I’d say it’s pretty efficiently organised - data storage and processing all taking place in their clearly defined compartments.” He ignored Carson’s raised eyebrows. “Only, when I try to search for, you know, what happened between me and John… what I felt, that is… Well, it’s like a file that’s been deleted, except maybe it hasn’t been deleted, maybe it’s been renamed and I just can’t find the pathway.”

“Do you want to find it?”

“Yes. No. What would be the point? I just think it would help if I understood it a bit more.”

“What did the Ancient lady, Teer, say?”

“Something about barriers and how we build them ourselves and the whole lot has to be cleared away if you want to ascend. I don’t want to ascend, I just want to know what the hell’s happening in my own head. And John’s.”

“How does the Colonel feel about it?”

“How does Sheppard _feel_ about anything?”

“You’ve tried to talk to him?”

“Yes. But he won’t. And now he’s avoiding me.”

“Are you sure? He’s probably just busy with the latest contingent from Earth. The orientation process always takes a while.”

“No, he’s definitely avoiding me. He’d normally be here for breakfast, even if the bacon isn’t up to the usual standard.” Rodney picked up the offending foodstuff between the tips of his fingers and regarded it with suspicion.

“I saw you having breakfast together yesterday.”

“No. We had breakfast the day before. And he was quiet then, even for Sheppard. I haven’t seen him since.”

Carson held his tea in both hands. He looked down into the half-empty mug and then back up to Rodney. “Hmm,” he said, uninformatively.

“‘Hmm’, what?”

“Well, it’s probably harder for the Colonel, isn’t it?”

“It’s hard for me!” said Rodney indignantly. “Why should it be harder for him?”

“Because he’s military, Rodney, and he doesn’t deal well with emotional issues at the best of times.” Carson turned his mug of tea so that a ring of dampness spread around the base. “Maybe I should suggest counselling.”

“Ha. Yes, because that would be so well received. Anyway, why should he need it? It’s all over and forgotten. Well, it would be if I didn’t have the insatiable urge to analyse it to death. He just wants to move on.”

Carson shook his head. “You don’t just forget that kind of trauma, Rodney.”

“Trauma? Why trauma? I didn’t do anything awful to him.”

“I’m not saying you did. Intentionally.”

“What? What are you saying, Carson?”

“I just think that for someone who’s lived his life in the military for years and has built his identity around it, to suddenly find yourself wanting things you shouldn’t want... ‘Conduct unbecoming’, Rodney. ‘Dishonourable discharge’. ‘Leavenworth’. Think about it. _You’re_ confused about your identity and you have no such boundaries. Think how violated he must feel.”

Rodney felt sick. “But I didn’t… I mean it wasn’t…”

“No, of course not. You were both acting under an alien influence.”

“Yes. We were.” He realised he’d ripped the bacon into tiny pieces and his fingers were covered in grease.

“Well, I’m no psychologist, but I know that sometimes it’s all about being totally honest with yourself. Honesty always breaks down barriers.” Carson pushed back his chair and picked up his tray.

“Where are you going?”

“I have a shift starting in five minutes, Rodney.”

“Oh. See you later, then.”

“Have a good day, Rodney.”

Rodney grunted acknowledgement.

He regarded the pile of bacon scraps before him. He should get up, throw them in the trash and start his day’s work. He wiped the grease off his fingers, but didn’t move. Tension spread from the base of his neck out across his back and he knew his shoulders were climbing toward his ears, but didn’t seem to be able to release them. His mind ran on Carson’s words. A sour feeling crept into his gut and made his breakfast stir uneasily. Rodney recalled John, out on the pier, swept by the rain, wrestling with his unwanted feelings. He had stepped in and thought he was helping, thought he was doing what any good friend should do. Should he, instead, have left John out there? Let him use the cold and the rain to douse his emotions into a state of numbness? Or were all of Rodney’s actions the result of Hedda’s interfering so that he could be absolved of all blame?

Honesty. Carson had said he should be honest with himself. But how was that possible when he didn’t even know how to begin to untangle the writhing mass of his motivations? He was and always had been John’s good friend. Where did friendship leave off and love begin, and further, where did love develop into desire? And how could love and desire be turned on and off like a tap?

For once, just this one time, maybe it was time to stop; to stop his active, inquisitive brain from picking it all apart and trying to analyse and categorise and set everything in order in neat little compartments. John needed to move on, and for his friend to be just the normal, prickly mass of arrogance and genius, the movie-watching, chess-playing, man-to-man best friend. So Rodney would do his best to move on too. He’d bury himself in his work and get back to normal; normal, where he risked his life on a daily basis, exploring an alien Galaxy, trying to protect its inhabitants as well as Earth’s from any and all deadly threats. And then, having survived the daily round of jeopardy, he would return to his quarters, alone.

He got up, bussed his tray and began his day’s work.

oOo

He worked. He drank coffee. He ate energy bars. He tried not to be sharp with his minions, but then yelled at them anyway, because they deserved it. As far as it went, Rodney’s day was normal; normal but with a flatness and an emptiness, a feeling of lack and empty space. Eventually, he slipped into a rhythm and became absorbed in his work so that his surroundings faded and he existed solely within the confines of his intellect, freely leaping from micro-problem to micro-solution, slowly building a web of efficiency and beauty. And then, happy and excited, he reached within his mind for the joy that would weave a counterpoint to his arching melodies of intuition and logic. But there was nothing there; he was groping in the dark for a light switch and met only a blank, smooth wall.

His concentration broken, Rodney swore loudly and was dimly aware of the working buzz of nearby voices rapidly dispersing outward to a safe radius around his centre point.

Carson had talked about being honest. Okay, time for some honest-to-God truth. He missed being in love. He didn’t miss the mixed-up doubtful motivation of those few days, but he missed the happiness, the simple joy of being with someone who he cared for very much. He’d have to talk to John, and make him talk back. He had to know if John had been happy too or if his happiness was totally over-ridden by guilt and shame. 

No messing about. He scanned the city for John’s presence, pinpointed his tracker and took the LSD with him as well, so that there was no chance of escape.

oOo

The door was closed. Rodney checked the LSD; one life sign. John's office door was never closed when he was in there, ostensibly to reinforce an approachable 'open door' policy, but actually in the hope that something interesting might happen to divert him from the tedium of paperwork.

Rodney knocked.

A sharp answer could equally have been 'Come in' or 'Go away'. Rodney chose his interpretation and entered.

Maybe it was just the light, but John's skin looked washed-out, his black hair a sharper contrast than usual, his downcast lashes stark against his pale cheeks. There was a laptop open before him and a stack of paper, the top sheet dense with neatly-filled boxes of hand-written text. So much for the modern paperless office.

Rodney hesitated. It seemed to him that the figure behind the desk was more Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard of the US Air Force than his friend, John. His shirt was considerably less crumpled than usual, the sleeves, for the first time that Rodney could recall, rolled down and buttoned at the cuffs and, though tufts of his hair had rebelled, an attempt had been made to tame the disorder.

He filled out a box, his precise block capitals not straying from their rigidly delineated space, and then placed the lid on the pen, set it down and added the form to the completed pile.

Then he looked up. "McKay. What can I do for you?"

The lack of inflection turned Rodney's legs to water, but he ignored the flimsy plastic chair in front of the desk, set his chin and met the cold, dark eyes firmly.

"I need to talk to you. To tell you something… things."

"Go ahead."

Rodney took a deep breath. "I’ve failed,” he announced.

John’s eyes remained hard, his expression giving nothing away.

“I’ve tried to work out the whole situation between us with logic and reasoning and I’ve failed. I can’t do it.”

"McKay, enough already."

"No, _John_. No. It's not enough." Rodney placed his curled fists on the hard desktop and leant over. "You may have been able to move on, to pack it all away and fasten it down in the deep recesses of your military-discipline mind, but I can't. I can't just pass on with a smile and a wave to the next catastrophe that passes for life in this Galaxy."

"Maybe you should. Maybe there's things you should be doing instead of obsessing over something that's over."

A tight ball of rage expanded in Rodney's chest. He thrust it down. "I'll let that insult to my sense of responsibility pass, because I have to say this."

"Fine. Say what you need to say. Then you can go." A muscle in John’s jaw twitched.

“Okay, I will! So, here it is then! I know that we were forced together, I know that it was wrong, what Hedda did, and I realise now that I probably should have resisted more and maybe left you to your angst-ridden pit of self-blame, and that maybe if I had you wouldn’t now be so traumatised that you’ve chosen to bury yourself back in that punitive military mindset. No!” John had begun an angry, snorting denial, but Rodney’s raised hand stopped him. “I realise that I’ve probably lost your friendship because I gave in too soon and tried to make what we had work and made you do things you wouldn’t have done if I’d left you alone. But, despite all that, I was right! I was right, John Sheppard, because even if that life wasn’t real, even if it was fake, it was a damn good fake! It was a fake where we had joy and laughter and where we didn’t have to be alone in the dark with all the awful things we’ve had to do, where we didn’t have to be alone with our nightmares and our fear! And I didn’t know what was going on in your head, I didn’t really know how you felt about me, but I’ve realised I didn’t have to, because I knew you, John.” Rodney pressed his bunched fist hard against his chest, above his frantically throbbing heart. “I knew you deep down inside, I saw you, and not just because of the sex but because of the peace that I felt and that I know you felt when we held each other and there was nothing but us, nothing mattered but us and that - that moment when -”

“I loved you.”

Rodney broke off, his breath rasping in his aching throat. “What?”

John looked at him, his eyes empty and bleak, his skin paler than ever. “I loved you,” he said. He took a deep, shuddering breath and then was silent.

Rodney collapsed into the hard, plastic chair. He raised a shaking hand and rubbed his brow, covered his eyes then let his hand trail down over his face to massage his aching jaw. “I loved you, too.”

John still said nothing.

“We weren’t supposed to miss it,” said Rodney. “We were supposed to just go back to being friends and carry on.”

John cleared his throat and opened his mouth, but then stopped and shook his head, his throat working silently.

“I miss it,” Rodney said.

John ran his hands through his hair, returning the black locks to their customary disarray. “Me too.”

Guilt stirred again in Rodney’s stomach. “I thought - I mean, Carson said, that you were traumatised and that I…” He swallowed and stared down at his tensely twining fingers.

John shrugged. “I’m just… I dunno.” He shrugged again. “Tired?”

Rodney frowned. “Tired?”

“Tired of thinking. Tired of trying to do the right thing and then finding out maybe it wasn’t the right thing and then, I don’t know what the hell the right thing is any more.”

Rodney felt his lips quirk upward. “Nice summary.”

“I’ve been working on it for a while.” John unbuttoned his cuffs and began rolling up his sleeves.

“So, what now?”

The black eyebrows questioned without words.

“Do you think there’s any hope for us?” Rodney said.

“We’re still friends.”

“Will that be enough? I mean, not that it isn’t a lot, because your friendship is really, really important to me, but…”

“What?”

“She said, I mean Teer, she said ‘true love knows no barriers if the heart is open’.”

John smirked. “True love?”

“I know it’s mushy, but sometime’s mushy’s good. Isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Mushy can be good.”

“So, what now?”

“Now,” said John, pushing back his chair, standing up and grimacing as he stretched tensed muscles. “Now, we go see if we can track down some snacks.”

“Coffee,” said Rodney.

“Coffee and snacks,” John agreed.

“And then?”

John shrugged again. “I guess we just wait and see.”

oOo

They were back. Against the odds, they’d made it back and, in the end, no-one had died. And after the ear-shattering chaos and heart-thrumming terror off-world and then the efficient, bright-lighted bustle of the infirmary, Rodney had finally made it back to his quarters. Alone.

He touched the bruise on his jaw where something had hit him and shifted where he sat, on edge of the bed, the scrapes on his knees rubbing against his pants and stinging with bright, burning pain. It helped. What most people didn’t realise was that, as an alternative to imminent death, little, non-fatal injuries were comforting; it was a hurt that wouldn’t kill you, something to be gentle with, to give you an excuse to pamper yourself a bit, as if having been nearly killed (again) wasn’t excuse enough. And for some reason, it never was.

Rodney undressed and showered, wanting and needing the hot water to wash away the stress-tight trembling of his skin and knowing it wouldn’t. It always took time for the anxiety to fade. When he should be celebrating being alive he felt, at best, numb and at worst, cheated; as if he’d survived only to begin the whole cycle again. Because there was always a next time, another mission that went wrong, always more danger and the constant weight of knowing that a cruel fate was hanging over him; hanging by a thread that would inevitably break and bring doom hurtling down upon himself and his friends. So far they’d avoided the falling sword, turning it aside by luck and violence and quick thinking. But it was exhausting. A constant burden, but, he’d long ago realised, a burden that he wouldn’t give up for the illusory safety of an Earth-bound life.

“Probably go home and get flattened by a truck anyways,” he commented, into the stream of warm water.

He finished up, wrapped a towel around his waist and wandered out into his bedroom, debating the merits of the Mess Hall over his stash of power bars, the background twitch and thrum of his over-taxed nerves breaking his thoughts into detached jabs which led to no conclusion and a defeated slump onto the bed.

The door chimed. Rodney grunted an indeterminate response.

It was John. He was barefoot and dressed in a t-shirt and old, baggy sweatpants. He had a band-aid on his cheek and strapping on one wrist, but those marks of injury weren’t the things that made Rodney’s heart ache for his friend. The worst hurt was in his eyes; the weariness, the blank, black pain from staring his own mortality in the face yet again.

“Come in.”

Rodney heaved himself to his feet, turned away from John and messed with the coffee machine. Caffeine wouldn’t help, but the action was comforting and John needed time to be in Rodney’s space without having to say or do anything in particular. He knew this about his friend and accepted it.

In a second, he’d hear John sit down on the bed and John would open the laptop and they’d watch a movie. Or maybe he’d sit down where the chess board was still set up; it was John’s turn and Rodney thought of the strange lives they led, that the interval between chess moves was not uncommonly filled by terror. 

Bare feet squeaked on the floor directly behind him. He turned and John was there, his head turned to one side, but his eyes on Rodney, his hands shifting from his pockets to fleetingly clasp each other and then to fidget with the hem of his shirt.

“I, um…” His eyes fell and then returned, their weary hollowness containing a mute plea.

“John?” Rodney whispered, past the lump in his throat.

“Look, I know that… er. I mean -. It’s just that I can’t -.” He gulped and ducked his head. “I don’t think I can -.” He folded his arms tightly and his breath shuddered through his tense frame.

A longing, aching need awoke in Rodney’s chest and in his arms; a tearing, wrenching, soul-deep imperative. And he didn’t care anymore. He didn’t care about gender or embarrassment, or risk of rejection. He was in pain and so was his friend, his best friend, the friend that he loved. He stepped forward and wrapped John in his arms and held him and pushed his face into John’s neck and closed his eyes against the world. Arms came around his back, first one and then the other, lightly gifting soft, diffident pats, then suddenly gripping, squeezing, holding tightly, while coarse stubble scratched against his neck and his cheek and the warm dampness of John’s breath came and went in sharp, desperate gusts.

“I love you, John Sheppard.”

John’s answer was a mere movement of lips, mouthed past a blockage in his throat. “Love you, too.”

Rodney took his friend’s hand. He led him over to the bed and flung back the blankets. Then he took the hem of John’s shirt and drew it over his head. He brushed his lips over John’s and then kissed his way down John’s chest, kneeling and pulling loose the towel round his own waist and then taking the waistband of John’s pants and underwear and pulling them carefully down. John stepped out of his clothes. They looked at each other, their loneliness and hurt draining away. 

John’s lips lifted slightly at one corner. “Why are we doing this?”

“Because we need it.” 

“I don’t get it. We shouldn’t want to.”

Rodney moved closer to his friend, and closer still until their arms were around each other, their chests touching, and scratchy hair was tickling his leg followed by the firm nudge of John's awakening erection.

“I want it. Do you?”

“Yeah.”

“Then nothing else matters, John. Nothing else matters.”

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/190544196@N08/50544539527/in/dateposted-public/)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear Readers,  
> Thank you very much for sticking with me through this story. I hope you have enjoyed it and will let me know by leaving kudos and comments. As my first McShep, it was an experiment and one that was surprisingly difficult to write, in places. It was, however, as are all my stories, written with love.  
> Salchat

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for 'Up one way and down the other'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26793814) by [Salchat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salchat/pseuds/Salchat)




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